Stray Devil
by Dylan Millwood
Summary: Challenge by Metalforlife. After fighting Sasuke, a near-dead Naruto finds himself transported in to underworld. By a stroke of fortune, he finds himself alive thanks to a certain Crimson-Haired Princess. Unfortunately, he wants nothing to do with her or her peerage, upon learning the cost of saving him was the one thing he had always sought to prove he had-his humanity.
1. Chapter 1

A century ago the Valley of The End was forged in the clash between Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju. Their power had carved a great scar in the earth, their fight reshaping the lands with their destructive power, forming the great Valley Of The End. The great waterfall was flanked by statues of the two titans of the shinobi world, built to honor the sheer skill and power these two men once possessed.

Now, over a century later, another battle, between two young boys was being fought there. Less destructive, but no less intense for the two combatants.

On one side of the valley stood Sasuke Uchiha. Gone was the image of the proud, handsome young boy that girls had swooned over, his appearance changed and distorted by the curse mark that he drew ever more power from. His once fair skin now replaced with an ashen grey color while his once onyx eyes were now black with crimson irises. The most unusual aspect of his eyes though was the three tomoe present in each eye, a clear sign of the sharingan, the legendary dojutsu of the Uchiha clan while a black, a four pointed star adorned the center of his face, between his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. His lips, (much to the internal amusement of his enemy) had turned a metallic powder blue in color, making it look as though he were wearing lipstick. He had also grown claw-like nails and his spiky hair, which was styled to point upright at the back almost like the tail of a fowl, grew to waist-length, still retaining its shape and style, turning a metallic powder blue in color (again, something that inwardly amused his opponent, he guessed that hairdo couldn't gen much more stupid even with Sasuke's mutation). From his back sprouted two giant webbed hands, a cruel mockery of wings. He wore his usual clothing that consisted of the traditional Uchiha clothing: a navy blue, short-sleeved shirt with a high collar and the Uchiha crest on the back, even though both items were ripped and torn apart by the sheer intensity of the battle.

In spite of the fierce fight he was in, his face remained impassive with only the barest hints of a smirk gracing his lips.

The blond child standing opposite of him snarled. On his head was short, blond hair that stood up all over like the spines of a sea urchin, and a blue headband with a metal plate attached to it that had the Hidden Leaf Village symbol of a spiral arrow engraved into it. He wore a tracksuit that consisted of orange pants and an orange shirt that had blue near the shoulders and was white at the neck, on the back of the shirt was a red spiral symbol, He had some bandages on his thigh and a carrying case for a kunai knives. He also wore a small pouch on his belt for basic ninja supplies.

This was none other than Naruto Uzumaki, "Demon Brat" of the Hidden Leaf Village. Despite the bright orange clothing that he wore, the major attention grabbing point was the bubbling cloak of glowing red energy that covered his form in the outline of an animal, complete with ears and a tail.

He sported what looked like claws on both his hands and feet. His lips had blackened and his canines had also lengthened and sharpened until they had turned into fangs while the pencil-thin whisker-like markings on his face had grown more pronounced, widening and darkening, until they resembled abysmal scars. His eyes had been the greatest change as, not only had his eye shape become more vulpine and had gained black eye rings around them like an animal, his once soulful blue eyes themselves had changed; becoming blood red with an animalistic, vertical black slit for the pupil.

These, combined with his mouth being pulled into a vicious snarl as he beheld his opponent, the boy looked more like a vicious animal than a shinobi.

He looked like a vengeful devil, the thing he most despised.

For his entire short life the boy had been called a demon for holding the power of the strongest Biju that almost destroyed the village he called home at bay within himself. He was in fact the greatest hero the Hidden leaf Village, Konoha, ever had, but was ostracized and hated for what was beyond his control, something that someone else had done to him back when he was a newborn and had no say in.

However the last year or so, he had been proving that he was in fact not the demon the people of his own homeland called him by saving them from the Ichibi no tanuki, Shukaku.

Naruto thought of the path they had taken to get to this point. Of becoming shinobi of their village, Konohagakure. Of the Land of Waves, of the Chuunin exams and the invasion which led to the death of the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. Of Orochimaru and of the decision his best friend took to leave and the promise he made to Sakura.

He made his decision.

The single tail that sprouted behind his back was suddenly joined as a second one, and moments after, a third bubbled up next to it. And with the new tails his power increased, his aura now boiled the waters on which he was standing and created great, steaming tidal waves, the energy so great it repelled the liquid around him.

"You're returning with me to the village, Sasuke!" He shouted with his warped and demonic voice. "Even if I have to break every bone in your body to do so! Even if I have to give into the Kyuubi's foul power!"

The skin started to peel off Naruto's body, showing the swirling dark red, nearly black, layer of chakra energy underneath. The skin burnt up like lit scarps of paper as soon as it left his body and the energy formed a purple dome around him, like an eggshell or a chrysalis, meanwhile Sasuke was trying not to collapse underneath the sheer killer instinct and corrosive properties of the Biju's chakra and it was only because of his cursed seal that he was even managing to remain standing.

One of the powers of the dōjutsu kekkei genkai of his family, the Uchiha Clan, was that the Sharingan was being able to see chakra flow. The Sharingan itself gave color to chakra, allowing the wielder to differentiate them. It could even see chakra through solid surfaces...and what that near x-ray-like vision was showing him as he could practically see what his former friend was becoming under the shell of energy made him wince. This...this was bad...! Things weren't supposed to go this way!

All Sasuke had wanted was to follow the advice of the one he hated most in the world for butchering his family like pigs at slaughter and murder the person he had the strongest bond with in cold blood all for the sake of enhancing his ocular abilities! What was so wrong about that enough to warrant something like having to fight something like this?!

The change...he had to stop it! Rushing forward, Sasuke began to form the hand seals for his most devastating move that was designed to pierce, which—unfortunately—was a close-range technique. As the chidori formed, the once brilliant blue-white lightning that enveloped his fist turned a disgusting black and white mix, but just as he got within arm's reach of his target, a beam of red energy shot upward and with it the orb violently exploded in fractured black disks of energy, white on the insides that dissipated into the air, leaving nothing behind.

Sasuke was slammed into the canyon wall behind him so hard by the orb bursting and directing all of its pure pressurized force outward, that if his new wings hadn't cushioned his impact by taking the brunt of it (which STILL hurt like a bitch!), his spine would have shattered like sugar-woven glass.

Groaning, he pried himself out of the stone around him and looked at what kind of entity the metamorphosis had to display to the world.

What he locked his eyes on, he almost mistook at first.

Were the once orange-clad boy was, stood a fox-like creature made from a chaotic red chakra even more vile and evil than the previous cloak. The nearly-black energy covering his body entirely in a tighter, more intense shroud that more sleekly took the form of a fox around a human body. The outline of fox bones had grown over the back of his torso, arms, legs, and head like some sort of armor. Six swirling tails weaved behind him lazily, like in a trance. His eyes had turned ghastly, glowing, pure white whilst his mouth transformed into a cruel, glasglow, jack-o-lantern maw, rigged with knife-like teeth the inside of that glowing white as well.

This was no longer the worthless, moronic orphan Sasuke had come to associate with what came to his mind when he thought of Naruto. This was something else. A being that clearly only had one purpose to exist: to destroy whatever stood in the path that required its presence in the first place.

Shit.

And judging from what his eyes showed him of how tightly woven together that energy was, distance combat was utterly useless. Not even an annoyance to the thing Naruto had become.

Grimacing, Sasuke formed another chidori. Wishing he could still use his wings for an extra speed boost, or even as a shield between him and attack, or simply to fly up and escape from danger. As they were now, they would only weigh him down as useless sacks of broken bone, muscle, and skin attached to his body.

Naruto—or the thing that had been Naruto—raised his right arm and formed his favored close range move, the Rasengan. The jutsu, which normally would have been blue, now swirled with black and purple energy. Humming with an omnipresent aura.

Sasuke tensed his muscles and the next moment sprang forward, the chidori leaving a trace of destruction behind him as he dragged the Chidori through the ground. Sure the drag slowed him a little, but he was sure he was still meant to win this fight.

Naruto sprang forward as well, propelling himself forward with his new-found power.

With a booming ripping and tearing noise, they clashed Chidori with Rasengan, trying to strike at the core of the other and simultaneously engaging the opposite jutsu. But the moment they got in proximity to collide, the attacks formed a titanic sphere of rejecting energy that centered around the two and carved out a deep bowl in the ground as air was forced away from the sphere, the lake below thrashing with waves.

It wasn't bright and flashing. It was dull in a black color, but thick and opaque, almost as if it were solid.

Suddenly, the energy that pulsed outwards was pulled in, the sphere growing smaller and smaller until glowing white cracks appeared on it and, like the one that had covered Naruto during his transformation earlier, the orb violently exploded in fractured black disks of energy, white on the insides that dissipated into the air, leaving nothing behind, finally vanishing, leaving no trace of the two young ninja.

This was the scene one Kakashi Hatake arrived to see. An empty valley, signs of a brutal fight and no trace of his two students.

* * *

Rias Gremory was a rather pretty young thirteen year old. With her fair skin, blue-green eyes and waist length, crimson red hair with loose bangs that framed her pretty face, she cut quite a nice image. Coupled with the fact that she was already developing quite sizable assets, it was clear she would be a knock out beauty in a few years.

She was also a devil.

More specifically, she was a devil of one of the Thirty-Four remaining pillar families, the noble Gremory clan and the younger sister of the Crimson Satan, one of the four great Satans who govern the Underworld, Sirzechs Lucifer. As such, she had high expectations set for her as she was the heiress as well as being merely a high class devil.

At the moment she was taking a small vacation from her family and the endless tasks she had to deal with working day to day. She loved her family, she really, truly did, with all that she was. But sometimes she just wanted to get away from it all and relax with no one to bother her, temporarily put her role and obligations (such as her...UGH!...arranged marriage to that arrogant, aggressive, playboy with a holier-than-thou personality, Riser Phenex, who saw only her family name rather than her a person and viewed her merely as a means to an end to increase his own prestige in the social hierarchy of the underworld. She _**LOATHED** _that!). Oh, she understand her position and responsibilities that came with it full well, but it did her good to just take a step back and do something to feel like she could be ordinary, if even for a moment.

It was why she had come out to this clearing after all. It was rather bland, all things considered. Bordered by a small forest and filled with long grass and only a single tree in the center for shade.

Of course, she wouldn't be able to remain here long. When her brother realized she wasn't in her usual spots, he would probably have a panic attack wondering where his sweet "Ria-tan" had disappeared off to and send out all the Gremory family's servants and his peerage to find her as well as call in favors from the other great Satans—_again_.

Still, she would enjoy the peace while it lasted.

As she lay there, her thoughts wandered to her peerage. All the members of her peerage had suffered greatly and they all literally fell into her lap. The first was her best friend, Akeno Himejima. Akeno had been a young girl she had saved from being killed by her family, (a thought that caused Rias' mouth to crinkle in distaste) and reincarnated as her queen. She had grown very close to the black haired girl and enjoyed spending time with her and although her developing sadistic side was a little scary, she still was her best friend.

The second addition to her peerage was her young rook, Koneko Toujo. Koneko had been scheduled for execution on the crimes of her sister as well as racial hate for her being a youkai, more specifically a Nekoshou, a type of cat yokai. The little white haired girl was unfortunately traumatized and had closed off her emotions to everyone. It had taken a long time to get her comfortable to show even the reminisce amounts of emotion she currently showed to the family.

Her final addition was a recent one. A young blonde boy she had found nearly dead on the frozen ground in Northern Europe and had reincarnated as her knight. He was currently a little standoffish — okay, very standoffish — at the moment and had refused to tell them more than the bare basics of the so-called "Holy Sword Project."

As she continued to think on this, her thoughts turned to what she would use her last pieces on. She currently had a rook, a knight, eight pawns, a bishop and a rare mutated bishop piece left to use. She was unsure on what she wanted to do with the remaining pieces. She wanted to use them, obviously, and give herself a large group of friends like her brother Sirzechs had, but she was unsure which method to use.

She couldn't just randomly pick people, and it wasn't like they would fall from the sky.

Her internal monologue was cut off rather suddenly when she sensed a pulse of energy coming from almost directly above her. Looking up, she saw what looked like an orange comet speeding towards the ground before a loud crash indicated contact with the ground just on the edge of the clearing.

She ran towards the clearing, inclined on finding out what happened.

What she found, however, was not pleasant to see.

A young boy lay in the crater with the remains of his orange clothing still loosely attached to him. His eyes were closed but tremendous amounts of blood was flowing from underneath his eyelashes. All his skin seemed to have burned away, exposing his raw flesh to the cold outside air. Clutched in his right hand, the boy held a still warm. still pulsing, bloody heart, seemingly ripped from another person's rib cage. In his other hand, just as disturbingly, he held two eyes, torn from their sockets and covered in blood.

Sliding down the side of the impact crater to stop next to the young man, Rias checked his pulse and found it growing weaker by the minute. If something wasn't done, the boy would soon die!

There was only one thing she could do to save his life.

Taking out her Evil Piece set, Rias reached out with the energy of the king piece within her body to the young man.

"I, Rias Gremory, resurrect you, that you may serve me for all eternity." she said as a glowing arcane array appeared underneath him and red chess pieces entered his body one after the other. The sheer number surprising her.

Rias hated turning this boy without his connect, even if it was necessary.

It was a selfish act.

But she was a devil, and devils were regarded as selfish creatures...

* * *

The following day, Rias was looking around the small-relatively speaking anyway-room that she had called for her peerage to meet in. Seeing everyone was settled, or at least as settled as they could be, Rias cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice everyone. Yesterday I was taking a stroll through the nearby forest when I suddenly heard an impact not too far away. A human boy around our age was lying in the crater. His injuries were severe and he was on death's doorstep so I decided to resurrect him as my newest piece-his body took all eight pawns and a mutated bishop piece to save him. After I resurrect him, my brother appeared and carried him to the hospital since he was still severely injured. He was clutching a heart and a set of eyes in his hands, which was a bit disgusting." She said, "When we arrived in the hospital and started healing him the doctors found out that his eyes were missing and thus implanted the eyes he was clutching to in him so he wouldn't be blind forever, I just received the message that he was starting to wake up and wanted you to be the first people he would meet."

Scanning her eyes over the conscious members of her peerage, she quickly gauged their reactions. Akeno, for her part, merely looked as interested. Kiba had merely looked bored, although there was a small curiosity present. Koneko on the other hand showed no kind of reaction.

"Alright let's go." Rias announced enthusiastically after which the rest followed her towards the medical wing of the Gremory family's household.

* * *

The first thing that Naruto noticed when he woke up was he was NOT in the hospital. How did he know this? The bed was actually comfortable, for starters. Secondly he wasn't wrapped up in bandages and there was no smell of antiseptic or medicine. So, where was he then?

He opened his eyes but had to close them immediately again due to the bright light inside the room.

Slowly opening his eyes again to let them adjust to the light (why was his vision so much sharper?), he saw that he was in want seemed to be a bedroom converted into hospital room, it still held the comfort of a bedroom but people were able to receive medical treatment here.

He was glad for that.

He very much hated that building. Not for the people, nor for what happened within here, but because how utterly dead it made you feel when you were inside it. Actually, he felt that way in every hospital. White walls, white floors, white clothes it was all so eerily dead! The least they could do was add some color to it so it didn't feel like you're quarantined from the rest of the world. And then there were the needles. And don't get him started on the smell! It's either that of sickness or sterilization. Ugh!

As far as he was concerned, the word "hospital" stood for "Horrible Obnoxiously Smelling Place Insistently Trapping All Locals."

"Where am I?" He asked to no one in particular.

"In the Gremory estate." A voice came from his right.

"Aaaargh! What the hell!?" Naruto shouted whilst clutching his chest somehow leaping four feet in the air while still in a sitting position, then turned to look at where the light voice was coming from, noting a group of four people, all of them his age, that stood there, looking at him. "Where did you come from?!"

"Ara Ara, He is a lively one isn't he, Rias-chan?" Akeno asked Rias after watching the startled reaction of the boy in the bed.

Naruto looked at them.

The one who had spoken just now and described him as being lively was a young woman with a buxom figure and very long black hair and violet eyes. Her hair was tied in a long ponytail, reaching all the way down to her legs with two strands sticking out from the top and sloping backwards, with an orange ribbon keeping it in place, she was dressed a traditional miko attire, consisting of a white haori with red accents, a red hakama, and a pair of zōri with white tabi.

The next was a petite girl with white hair and hazel eyes, and a look of apathetic boredom on her face. Her hair in front had two long bangs going past her shoulders and several loose bangs hanging over her forehead, while the back had a short bob cut. She wore a black cat-shaped hair clip on both sides of her hair and her attire consisted of a short white kimono. What was really shocking however, was that she had a pair of white cat ears and a pair of matching white tails, and her eye pupils were cat-like vertical slits.

The only guy in the group he was looking at was a pretty-boy of a young man with short blonde hair, grey eyes and a mole under his left eye. He was dressed in a black blazer with white accents over a white, long-sleeved dress shirt with a black ribbon on the collar, matching black pants, and brown dress shoes.

However, the one that caught his attention most of all was young woman with light skin, blue-green eyes and a buxom figure. Her most distinctive feature was easily her long, crimson red hair that reached down to her thighs, with a single hair strand, an ahoge, sticking out from the top. Her hair also had loose bangs covering her forehead and side bangs framing her face. She wore an outfit which consisted of a floor-length, loosely-fitted gown, with long, tight sleeves and a narrow belt. Over it was worn a sleeveless surcoat and she had on some brown leather shoes. Oddly, she seemed to find the outfit a bit bothersome. Having know the likes of Sakura and Ino back home, and how fussy they were with fashion, he'd unfortunately learned to tell when an outfit didn't seem a girl's style or taste.

Long story short, in Naruto's mind, he'd been infected by those two. A guy shouldn't know so much about fashion, especially a girl's sense of fashion.

Looking at the last girl however, Naruto had to fight down a blush that would've made his face rival the girl's hair. After all, he didn't know why, but he had a MAJOR weakness for redheaded women. Sadly, there weren't any in Konohagakure, the closest to that being the pinketts of the Haruno family.

"Okay...who are you people, and where's Baa-chan?" He asked, uneasy. Couldn't be too careful. Still...while he didn't know who they were, it was obvious that these people had found and helped him, so he saw no reason to be hostile.

"Well, I'm Rias Gremory and these are Akeno Himejima, Yuuto Kiba and Koneko Toujou." the redhead said as she stepped forward and gesturing to each person in turn as she introduced them to him. "As for your grandmother...you were by yourself when you were found and brought here."

"Name doesn't ring a bell." Naruto replied, he didn't know any shinobi clan by the name of "Gremory", and he wasn't back in Konoha, that was obvious. So where was he? Then his eyes widened in shock. Wait! Where was Sasuke?! He was about throw off the sheets and burst out of the room, but he wrestled the impulse down and turned to Rias, if these people had helped him, maybe they could point him in the right direction to get back home.

"Say..." Naruto said, trying to be calm, "can you please send me to the Hidden Leaf village as fast as possible? I have to report that I failed to bring back the teme, and that he ran of to Orochimaru."

Rias tilted her head in confusion, then shook it negatively. "I'm sorry...I don't know of any leaf village, the only thing I can tell you is that I found you half-dead in a crater with a heart and two eyes in your hands."

Naruto went pale at that and it took a moment for it to sink in. What did she mean she didn't know about Konohagakure?! Being in a different place he could get...but never even hearing of it before?! Where was he?! If not in the boundaries of the Elemental Lands, then where? And he'd been half-dead in in a crater?! Damn fox and it's power! But worst of all was that last bit of news about what had been found in his hands.

"Wh-Whu...Whuu...Wait!? WHAT?! Heart and eyes?!" Naruto wondered as he realized what had happened, horrified. _'I...I killed him?! I killed my best friend!...Even though he betrayed the leaf and tried to kill me, he was still my friend!'_ he thought. Oh...he was SO dead when he got home! If the Elders and Council that were formed for the sake of having authority in the event that there wasn't an active Hokage didn't kill him, the people of the village that worshiped Sasuke for his clan name, or even worse, Sasuke's fangirls, would!

It was a relief when the redhead's voice brought him out of his thoughts.

"Also, like I said, when I found you, you were almost dead so I had to use my Evil Pieces to resurrect you into a devil to save you, after that we transplanted the eyes you held in your hand since your own were clawed out." Rias said.

Naruto's blood turned into iced-over tundra at that. He looked at Rias in absolute horror.

"Wait, you resurrected me...as a demon?!" PLEASE let him have heard _**THAT **_wrong! As if things couldn't get any worse!

"Yes...well...devil actually, but generally the idea's the same." she replied whilst she and her peerage revealed their black, bat-like wings behind themselves, "I reincarnated you as my new servant, although I'd rather call it a family."

"A Devil..." He repeated faintly. Fixated on that one point. _'So I finally became what the villagers said I always was, a demon...Why did she turn me into one? I'd rather have stayed dead than become the thing that I worked so hard for to prove that I'm not!'_

"Is there any way to reverse the process?" He asked desperately.

"No, I'm sorry," Rias said, not knowing what kind of impact her next words would have on Naruto, she was trying to be delicate with this, even though it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to bring up, and that the only way to say it was to be blunt, no telling how her new pawn/mutate bishop would come to terms with his new situation, after all. "But there's nothing wrong with being a devil like us."

At her words, Naruto felt something in him snap.

"You...Do you know how long I have been called a demon without being one?! Do you know how long I have tried to prove those people wrong?! Do you know that you turned me into the thing that I despised my entire life?!" he raved hysterically. **"YOU TOOK AWAY MY HUMANITY! YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DIE!"**

Rias took a half-step back, surprised. "No, I'm sure you're jus-"

She was interrupted when Naruto lunged for a knife that laid on the cupboard next to him. He grabbed the blade and in a quick motion, brought it towards his throat, however just before he could end his life, Kiba knocked him out and took the knife from his fellow male blond.

"...I think he might need some time to adjust being a devil..." Akeno said awkwardly, attempting to reassure Rias.

Rias was in shock, however. None of her pieces until now had tried to kill themselves upon hearing that they had become a devil. Sure, they opposed the idea for a while, but none had tried to take their own life.

She just hoped he would come to accept it.


	2. Chapter 2

As he stood in front of a full-length mirror in the room, Naruto couldn't help looking at himself, his attention focused on his face.

So these were Sasuke's eyes? He recognized the bright red irides with the three black, comma-like tomoe around the central pupil, but the sclerae were ebony, doubtlessly a lingering trait from before death had caused the alterations the curse mark had induced in Sasuke's body. Clearly, they'd been removed premortem.

It a twisted way, it made him feel almost like Kasashi-sensei, what with his own second-hand left Sharingan eye that was a mismatch to the rest of his body. Of course that meant he most likely had the same drawback as his teacher had, being unable to deactivate the Sharingan into a "normal" eye...or eyes, in Naruto's case.

Looking down at himself, Naruto felt his lip curl in revulsion.

The calluses on his hands showed he worked himself to the bone through physical training. Which meant he wasn't the gifted type who easily picked up on new skills, instead having to devote hours and energy into mastering them to even get close to those who were considered geniuses. He was actually proud of those.

No. It was the scars that left him disgusted about his body...wait...no not his body, he corrected himself, not anymore. This body. While it looked the same as it always had, it wasn't a human's anymore.

While the damned fox in him had done a lot to heal Naruto of the injuries he sustained, under the understanding that if Naruto died, the fox would as well since it was stuck in him, it couldn't always rid him of the scars. His body was a latticework angry lines and other, uglier wounds. Mementos of his surviving pain and abuse so awful, so evil, that were it not for the markings that stared back at him in the mirror nearly every day, he would have banished it from his conscious mind, things that no human could or should be able to survive...thing's he'd only survived due to a demon's necessity in having him alive...things that had happened to him because because people THOUGHT he was a demon himself before.

Now he actually WAS one. All because he had tried to stop a comrade from selling his soul to a body-snatching madman. Meanwhile, said "comrade" was most likely living it up in the eternal paradise of Heaven!

Naruto couldn't help but be bitter at the idea.

His fingers traced the outline of his newest mark: the nasty starburst-shaped divot in his chest where Sasuke's chidori had nearly taken a lung, as he did, his new eyes trailed over to the dozens of tinier spots and line where Haku's needles had pierced him, wondering what his old cryo-using frienemy/mentor would think of the situation Naruto currently found himself in, before his eyes drifted to other, much more unsettling wounds. The ones he had from BEFORE his life as a ninja. Mementos of his surviving pain and abuse so awful, so evil, that were it not for the markings that stared back at him in the mirror nearly every day constantly reminding him of them, he would have banished it from his conscious mind for the sake of his own sanity.

Naruto sighed, recalling how he'd felt in the past. Unbearably lonely, longed to be liked, loved and acknowledged as an individual as a result of being a jinchūriki — to show that he was a human being, not the demon he'd been forced to contain by that ever-damned son-of-a-bitch Yondaime Hokage, the person Naruto both admired and loathed above all others— and was driven to depression and desperation. That was part of the reason Naruto had consequently developed that misconception that pranks and mischief would bring him the attention he craved, but the other part was because not only did it allow him to vent his negative feelings towards the ones who treated him horribly in a passive aggressive fashion, it also helped him try to fool himself that the people around him loathed him for his pranks as opposed to the fact that he existed in the first place.

For Naruto, he'd worked and fought twice as hard as anyone to prove his humanity, a fight he had to endure...to fight at all...because he carried inside him the spirit of the Nine-Tailed Fox that almost destroyed the Leaf Village after the Yondaime had sealed it within him back when Naruto was a newborn, having utterly no say in it whatsoever. As far back as he could remember, people had always treated him like a monster and a freak. Everyday was a struggle just to be accepted by the world as a human being.

A struggle that, thanks to that Rias Gremory girl, he had now ultimately lost.

Some small, rational part of him was aware of the fact that Rias girl hadn't meant any harm—quite the contrary, she'd done what she had to in order to save his life—but hearing what had been done to him, he was too angry with her to care about that.

Sighing, he turned away from the mirror, fighting the urge to smash the reflective surface to pieces, and to the nightstand, where he'd found a new set of clothes that had been set there for him after he'd awoken after that Kiba guy had knocked him out. The outfit that had been laid out for him consisted of black jeans, an apricot-colored T-shirt with a grey wolf head imprinted on it and an unzipped, dark red hoodie that had a black mark on the back that looked like a three-clawed beast had slashed it, and black-and-white tabi boot sports shoes for parkour as well as a pair of clean socks and even some fresh underwear.

Naruto snorted. He wanted nothing to do with the redhead or her little group. Far as he was concerned, even the outfit she'd had left for him was an insult. Still...looking at the tattered remains of his orange tracksuit, he had to confess that the battle against his now-deceased, former "best friend" had done a number on his attire. Unless he wanted to go around as a nudist (which he didn't!), he guessed he'd have to give just a little ground on this one thing. Resentfully, he put on the outfit. Ah, well...least it had orange. Small miracle that it was.

As his thoughts went to their battle at the Valley of the End, Naruto realized something about Sasuke. When it all came down to it, this mess with him being turned into a devil was all Sasuke's fault! Self-righteous dumbass that he was!

While he understood why Sasuke was so angry over his family's massacre (after all, who couldn't?), after the incident at the inn when him and ero-sennin had been looking for Tsunade-baa-chan and Sasuke had been beaten senseless and put into that Tsukuyomi-induced coma, Naruto had realized that when it came to Itachi, Sasuke's mindset was as transparent as air: He lost his cool before the fight even started. He didn't bother even trying to assess his enemy's strength at all, and then he just charged in without thinking, blind hatred as his only rational, only to self-destruct.

Once that happened, the damned idiot's hubris kicked in and how he had both a superiority and an inferiority complex exposed itself, with the way he was unwilling to acknowledge when someone was stronger than him, but obsessed when he believed that they were. Besides, the self-titled avenger had grown up in the shadow of a prodigiously talented elder sibling, he should have understood the desire to have approval and recognition for his own merits, his own level of ability and improvement. Honestly, how hard was it to simply tell someone else "Good job"? But NOOOO! He just couldn't accept that someone wanted to get even that much from him.

It must have been soooo hard having to just settle for being rich, powerful, and admired, but it wasn't enough, and his lust for power and his pride had gotten him killed. Ironic really, they had both taken the thing they valued most from the other: Naruto, while in the figurative, emotional, and idealistic sense, valued that heart. Sasuke had valued absolutely nothing but his eyes...now Sasuke was dead from his heart being ripped out, and those very same ho-so-precious eyes were in the head of the one who had killed him.

All It had cost Naruto to put down the wrathful, self-righteous headcase was him being human, and since Konoha worshiped everything about Sasuke from the ground he walked on to the toilet he shit in, the blond couldn't go home either. All because, in the end, Sasuke had proven himself to be nothing but a spoiled rich kid who couldn't stand not to get everything he wanted and thought he was owed just because of his clan name.

Besides, the emo's goals were backwards. The guy who demanded power and just assumed being given it was his right and whose purpose was to destroy his brother and repopulate the Uchiha clan had never thought about the order of his priorities. The prick had always just assumed that one day he would be the one to end his brother's life. He had never seriously considered any other possibility. The problem with THAT was, it was obvious that Itachi was someone who preferred to end fights as quickly as possible, all the while holding himself back. Why that was, Naruto really had no clue, maybe he just hated to expend unnecessary effort in battle...? But to the point, that made it so that NO ONE, save Itachi himself, was aware of exactly just how powerful he was and what he could do when he seriously went all-out in a fight and actually aimed to kill his opponents. Taking that into account, Sasuke should have repopulated the Uchiha clan THEN gone after Itachi. That way, even if Sasuke had lost against his sibling, the task of rebuilding their family wouldn't fall to the one who had destroyed it in the first place.

But then, forethought never was Sasuke's strong suit as far as his goals. He wanted blood on his hands more than he did making sure his bloodline wasn't driven extinct or having restoring it become the job of the one who had whipped their family out. Then, in his obsession, he'd grown addicted to the twisted, forbidden power of that curse mark he'd gotten from Orochimaru in an attempt to just be given power on a silver platter because he didn't want to "waste time that he could have been using to hunt Itachi down and exact vengeance and justice on behalf of the Uchiha clan"...Naruto shook his head, knowing that was exactly what Sasuke's views on spending time training to improve his skills and grow stronger were. Like he'd said, Sasuke's logic was transparent as air for how easy it was to figure out how he though. Funny really, Sasuke had took the apple from the Snake, and it was NARUTO who was cast out of Eden for it!

As soon as that thought crossed his mind, Naruto groaned. Damnit! Now he was starting to think biblically?! He hated religion! Not matter the creed, no matter the entity they proclaimed, he HATED religion! All religions! Anyone that didn't like it, they could try living his life...constantly begging for help that wouldn't come from deities that didn't exist when cutthroat mobs were out to butcher you for simply being alive, proclaiming that all things holy wanted you dead because of the sheer fact that you existed in the first place...it could leave a profoundly bad impression as far as having faith went on people.

Naruto chuckled bitterly before he heard a snickering sound coming from behind him near the ceiling. That killed his sour amusement and his eye twitched, he turned to look up at the source of the sound.

So...it was still there huh?

It was some sort of bat creature. A pink round body like a ball, pointed ears on top of it's head, a noseless face, a human mouth, and big, human, gray eyes. It had small wings, a tiny, crooked tail that ended in an arrowhead, and stick-like legs that ended in cloven toes, and the top of it's head was a dark brown fur that extended to its ears and wings, and went into an almost bowl-cut, cowl-like point that met it's eyes, giving it a devious look.

Naruto glared at it with narrowed eyes. Wondering if he could get away with chucking the room's nightstand at it and smashing the thing. After all, it was the only living thing in the room with him, so not like anyone could snitch on him if he did. Ever since he'd awoken earlier, he'd found that thing watching him.

He just wished the damned thing would stop staring at him. Or at least blink!

At best the thing was just some freaky native animal, at worst, it was a summon that was ordered to keep an eye on him. Naruto was betting on the latter.

If he had to guess, it was that redheaded devil chick's. Something that annoyed him was the fact that whenever Rias crossed his mind was that, as much as he wanted to throttle her, part of him still considered the redhead pretty.

GAH! Not those thoughts again! Naruto turned and started banging his head against the wall. Where had he gotten this damn thing he had for redheaded women?! His non-existent "father"?! Maybe. For all Naruto knew about his own family, he might as well have been a test tube child, a botched attempt to genetically recreate the Yondaime Hokage after his death...guy was certainly beloved enough for people to go as far as grave-robbing and making imitations like that..."Project Ever-Light" Naruto called it, after all, the Yondaime's nickname was the "Kiiroi Senkō"...the "Yellow Flash", because his use of the Hiraishin no Jutsu causing him to appear and disappear in flashes of yellow light when he used it...and with a line of successive clones to make the man look seemingly immortal, a light that would never fade, it seemed to fit.

Depressing thing was, thinking of himself in this way had to qualify as Naruto's definition as a "happy thought" when he was growing up. If he was just a failed experiment and faulty clone produced by an experiment that was scrapped after the ones who pulled the strings saw how disappointing the results of the prototype were, that meant he hadn't been abandoned at birth for being a "hellspawn" as the people around him had always told him as an explanation as to why he was an orphan.

The bat-thing snickered at him and he turned to glare up at the thing again, the urge to smash it with "his" nightstand becoming even stronger. "Shut up!" he snarled at the creature. Oh, if he had a kunai...Rambo-style bat-kebobs! He meant it! Unfortunately, upon regaining consciousness, he'd discovered his ninja tools had all been confiscated, most likely by Rias to make sure he could try another suicide attempt again.

Naruto looked at the door, he'd tried it already, only to use "his" Sharingan to discover it not only locked, but reinforced with some kind of barrier, same with the window. He wasn't a prisoner, dammit!

Sitting on the bed, Naruto sighed, feeling restless. He needed to do something-anything-to keep his mind off that he was no longer human. Looking down at his hands contemptuously, and as his did so, his eyes widened as a glowing, crimson-colored symbol that consisted of a rose encased in a series of concentric circular shapes appeared on his palms briefly before they faded away as if they'd never been there.

What the?! Was that kind of seal for something? A curse mark to keep him under control like what the main branch of the Hyuga clan (one glaringly obvious exception to that excluded, of course) did to the cadet branch members of their own clan? No. What more could she do to him that was worse than turning him into a being of the underworld like he'd been accused of his entire life? A contract seal, like shinobi had with summons, then? Risa must've placed it on him at some point. Damn her! was she staking a claim on him or something?!

For that matter, where WAS the (literal) she-devil?

* * *

Rias paced her room, concern on her features.

The reluctant, newest addition to her peerage had her worried...for several reasons. First and foremost, his suicide attempt. Another was the oddity that had happened when she had made him a reincarnated devil.

It wasn't-shouldn't have been-possible to mix evil pieces when resurrecting someone, a person's body just couldn't process more than one classification type of Evil Piece at once. Meaning that it shouldn't have been possible for Rias to have used both all eight of her pawns AND her mutant bishop piece when resurrecting Naruto. Yet, as if to spit in the face of reality, his had. How could that be?

But most of all, there was his attitude...the things he had said before attempting to slit his throat. The blond hadn't seemed to be the religious type, so that ruled out his reaction being explained that way. And what kind of lunatics convinced someone they were a demon?

Granted, as a pure-blooded devil, Rias herself couldn't talk in that regard to the last point, but the idea of a person being raised never knowing a soft touch, never a kind word, never any of the joys or kindnesses that made life worth living and was instead forced to see only the bloodiest, cruelest, darkest aspects of the word...it was just sick and wrong to her that a person could have been forced to live through that. Seeing as the Gremory Clan were known as beings with extraordinary affection among the Devils, and as such, they didn't discriminate themselves with their servants and instead saw them as family rather than anything else, she found it even more appalling.

If she didn't do something to help him, he could easily become a stray, and Rias knew what happened to stray devils that had no master: Without their masters to keep their powers in check, they became a threat if their powers grew beyond their control. Devils took cases like that very seriously, and any Devil who became a Stray was to be killed on the spot.

She couldn't let that happen to him!

She stopped and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. First thing was first, she had to get through to the blond, at least learn his name, and hopefully where he was from so she could investigate his past a bit. She couldn't help him adapt to his new life as a devil of the Gremory if he threw up walls around himself like that. She'd left her familiar watching him (judging from his reaction earlier, she guess he wouldn't have appreciated finding her or any of her peerage with him when he awoke) to make sure he didn't do anything to try killing himself again, and used her magic to seal the room he was placed in. She hadn't liked that part, but with the way he seemed to become unstable after learning he was a devil now, giving him some space and time to himself seemed like it was for the best.

She had told her peerage to avoid telling anyone what happened. If her brother found out about him, Sirzechs would freak. While her brother was rightly renowned as a very laid-back, kind and caring individual towards others and was know to prefer to have things sorted out through talking instead of fighting, her brother was still considered as a siscon because of his deep love for her, and as an overprotective father. If he ever learned how her first meeting with the new member of her peerage had gone with the young man going off on her like that...well...there was a reason the hereditary technique the Gremory shared with the House of Bael thanks to her mother, Venelana, marrying her father, the current head of the House of Gremory, was known as the " Power of Destruction".

And from what she had sensed of the demonic energies within new newest family member prior to his devilfication, and the abnormality of the way his being turned into a devil had gone, Rias actually didn't want to place bets on which would win in a fight between her brother and the newly reincarnated devil.

Making up her mind, Rias resolved to try finding out what she could from him and look into who he was. Hopefully there were some answers to her questions regarding her concerns to be found. That she couldn't simply be told by him was a snag, but she wasn't going to give him the third degree over information he didn't want to share, so she'd find out on her own.

Walking out of her own room and heading to her multiple-evil piece-carrier's, Rias lowered the barrier spell over the door before entering...and instantly raised a brow at what she saw before shaking her head in amusement.

He was going up the walls...literally! He was walking up the vertical surface as easily as the ground, then flawlessly transitioned to the ceiling so that he hung upside down like a bat, sticking there by the soles of his feet.

"Well, good to see you're up." the Crimson-Haired Ruin Princess quipped, making him give a startled jerk and lose concentration for whatever he was doing and he fell to the floor, crashing headfirst in a heap.

"Damnit...this body feels better than mine did...chakra network feels like it isn't so highly overdeveloped and actually feels the way it would for average people in my age group...fits better in this body...need to work on my concentration now..." he grumbled, then started muttering about how the calibration of his physical and spiritual energies finally feeling properly proportioned with the body he was using now would take some getting used to.

Rias noted that he kept on using the term 'this' rather than 'my' to talk about his body. As if it weren't his at all. That was disturbing as far as she saw it. He resented his new devilhood that much. If that was the case, he might get himself killed intentionally to feel like he was distancing himself from being a devil, as if trying to slit his own throat wasn't bad enough, he'd be overly reckless in battle too.

Recruiting him into her peerage was looking more and more like a mistake. She HAD to get through to him, at least enough to rid him of his desire for death if he felt it would no longer mean being a devil. But she also noticed the word "chakra", another piece to the puzzle about where he was from and how he'd ended up in a crater before.

A hand entered the blond's field of vision, clearly offering aid, and he took it and was helped to his feet and he gave the person a quick word of thanks...before seeing it was the person that had changed him into a native of the underworld. He jerked away as if he'd been burned, his face hardening. "You again." he growled.

Rias sighed and looked at him before walking over and sitting on the bed. She figured he'd still be hostile, so she wasn't surprised.

"What're you doing here?" her unwilling servant spat.

"I live here. After all, this is my family's home, you were the one brought here after being found more dead than alive." Rias said, not missing a beat, making him growl and a muscle jumped in his jaw. Tricky bitch. "Fine, I'll give you that one. Whaddya want with me now?" he said, eyes narrowing.

Rias felt a tiny bit annoyed with his attitude, but given his reaction to learning he'd been made a devil, she supposed she could call this a small improvement. "I never got your name."

The boy looked at her incredulously, then snorted. "You came to see me because I didn't give you my name? Do you think I'm THAT dense?!"

Rias raised an eyebrow at him, "All I want is to know about you." she said.

"And all I want is to be human again!" the whiskered male retorted heatedly.

Rias sighed. "Ok. Fine. But could you just tell me your name? At the very least?"

He hissed like an angry alley cat, but decided to humor her if it meant getting her off his back for a while. "Naruto...Naruto Uzumaki."

Rias smiled at him. "There. Was that so hard...Naruto?" she asked, testing out his name even as she addressed him with that question.

Naruto glared at her.

Rias stood up and walked over to him. "Naruto...I'm sorry."

HUH?! He gave her his full attention at that. Sorry?!

His expression was pretty good. Under other circumstances, it might have made her laugh, but this was important to her. "For what I did to you."

His hands balled themselves into fists. Noticing this, Risa took a step back to get out of rang of his hands in case he tried to deck her before she continued, "I understand you're angry, you don't like what happened to you. If there had been another way to save your life in time with the state you were in, I would have done it. Who did that to you?"

Naruto actually paused at that. She was sorry? What did she really think telling him that would do, push back time so that he was never forced to be a demon...devil...whatever! It made him furious with her all over again! But there was what else she said.

If there had been another way...meaning stripping him of being human was the only readily available option at hand at the time.

He hated that.

Just like he hated being a monster now. But at least this devil girl was acknowledging that the sins of the creator shouldn't be visited upon the creation.

"Don't want to talk about it." he said curtly.

Rias nodded. "Then can you tell me something I need to know if I'm going to help you: Where's this leaf village you mentioned before? I need to know that if I'm going to help you get back there..."

He stopped at that, then let loose a cry akin to a wounded animal and collapsed, as if the notion of home broke his spirit and robbed him of the strength to stand. Naruto started muttering something nonstop under his breath. What it was Rias didn't hear because at that very moment, in response to his anguish, the power within him all but exploded outwards. a sudden hurricane of sheer demonic power that erupted like a volcano, not holding back a thing.

Like a thing alive, the demonic energy enveloped him, roiling and boiling, snapping and snarling. Rias' eyes widened at the sheer power, unable to even feel her own body, her own pulse, in its very presence. It was a terrifying and immense thing, blacker than the darkness of death itself. It threatened to blot everything else out and smother everything she was and snuff her out like a candle in the wind. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than that. To die. To be spared from the feeling of terror tearing through her body and twisted and tore at every fiber of her being and still, she wanted nothing more than to submit as she felt it settle over her like a layer of soot. The more she wanted to sweep the feeling away and escape, the more it swelled and swirled around her, so thick she could hardly see and was only just able to barely breathe.

THIS was her newest piece's power?!

Ok...whatever had nearly killed him, that was officially something Rias NEVER wanted to encounter!

"...get back, get back, get back, getback! Getback! Getback! _**GET BACK?!**_" he repeated over and over again and again like a mantra, his voice becoming shriller...louder...more brittle with every word until he was cackling like a madman and screaming it at the top of his lungs as he stood up again and faced her.

**"I CAN'T GO BACK! NOT WITH WHAT YOU'VE TURNED ME INTO! YOU ROBBED ME! MY HUMANITY...MY HOME...! WHY DO YOU WANT TO FIND OUT ABOUT ME?! SO YOU CAN STEAL EVEN MORE OF WHAT MATTERS FROM ME?!**" Naruto shouted, his power still blazing about him.

Rias took a half-step back in fear before she remembered herself, and flared how own power. "Don't you come any closer to me." She threatened, "Don't get any nearer with that pitiful output of power or I'll crush you just by standing here." To emphasize such, the floor beneath her cracked and dipped inward just from the increased intensity of her demonic aura. Even the walls began to rattle, "I mean it." While his power was anything BUT pitiful, Rias had to put on a strong enough front to where Naruto would believe his demonic power was inferior to her own when, as it stood, they were equal.

Please buy the bluff...Please back down...

Pitiful? Bullshit. Even on his own he had crushing levels of chakra, and everybody who knew him was aware of it. Still, she seemed determined to stand her ground, no matter what against him. Begrudgingly, Naruto had to admit he respected that. He understood that. Naruto momentarily chewed on the inside of his cheek in contemplation before deciding that he wasn't just going to stand there. Deciding to see if she could actually back up her tough attitude, Naruto's fiery orange chakra around his body grew stronger in intensity.

"Not enough." Rias said, "You know it's not."

In response Naruto took several deep breaths before his chakra cloak somewhat solidified into a bubbling red fox outline as a tail emerged. It still got no reaction, so focusing even further, Naruto yanked yet another tail forth, his whisker-marks darkening and his canines becoming more pronounced as his eyes took on a wilder red tint.

Rias paled at the sight of the emerging tails. So there were levels. And her Power of Destruction was only equal to the initial, tailless one. Just perfect. While her mother or elder brother were more powerful with the power shared by the Gremory and Bael, seeing as they were older and more experienced, there was no way the marquise-in-waiting was going to allow herself to be overcome so easily.

She stepped forward until she was nose-to-nose...as well as breast-to-chest...with her servant. The proximity making their energies mix. The bonding of their demonic energies swirled up in a vapor to the ceiling and seemed to be slowly eating through the ceiling as if it were acidic.

Naruto had to smirk at her, loathing for her aside, if there was one thing he could admire, it was determination. And this human-appearing girl certainly had plenty of that.

"With power like this, I can see why you were worth all my pawns and a mutate piece." Rias said, taking a step back to look at him appraisingly.

"Say what?" Naruto growled.

"Evil Pieces." Rias repeated, "They're something that was created by the Devil Ajuka Beelzebub to help replenish the number of Devils after the Great War...or Great Biblical War of Heaven and Hell...which had caused the death of countless Devils. they're identical to normal chess pieces in terms of appearance but glow in accordance to the magic color of its users when in use and are commonly given to Pure-blooded High-class Devils, so that they can gather servants of their own by reincarnating other beings into Devils, that's a set of 15 chess pieces. Furthermore, there are also special pieces known as Mutation Pieces. If reviving a person requires more than one piece, then using one Mutation Piece would be sufficient in reincarnating that person instead of having to use several pieces. Mutation Pieces can be a Queen, Rook, Knight, Bishop, or Pawn. They're very rare, and only One-out-of-Ten Devils possess Mutation Pieces."

Naruto snarled at that. So that's what you used on me then?!" while he didn't know what 'chess' was, from the terms he was being told the pieces were named, he guessed it was similar to shogi back home.

Rias nodded. "I had to use all eight pawns and my mutated bishop piece to bring you back."

He frowned. Nine huh? Lovely! So he had the same number of these "Evil Pieces" within him as the Kyuubi had tails? Needless to say, the information didn't help his mood.

"Get them out of me!" Naruto snapped, looking ready to tear his own chest open and dig the Evil Pieces out of his body himself if he had to.

Rias shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I told you I can't do that."

Seeing Naruto's nostrils flair, Rias held up her hands placatingly, "Easy Naruto...Like I said, I didn't have any other choice if I wanted to help you, and I AM sorry about that, but I'm wondering something."

"What's that?" he growled, glaring at her murderously, making Rias wish Naruto's original eyes hadn't needed to be replaced. Those red and black ones he had implanted in him to serve as replacements were damn scary when he glared.

"You...well..you don't seem the type to accept religion. So...I can't help but wonder why you're so angry about being made into a Devil."

That did it! Save his life or no, his past was off limits!

With a beastal roar from the blond, Rias was flung to the wall behind her like a rag doll from sheer pressure of the shockwave that forced the two away from each other. The sudden separation of the two malevolent energies forced blew through the room and burst out the window and door, the ceiling, floor and walls cracking.

As the reverb started vanishing in the room, Rias rolled out of the way as one of the tails of energy as it made to slam down on top of her. Then tried standing, only to duck as a clawed hand left a series of gouges in the wall where her head had been a second earlier.

As he prepared to attack Rias again however, someone tackled the enraged blond, sending them both crashing to the ground. Surging his power, Naruto released a demonic aura-enriched roar to throw the person off of him before leaping to his feet with a snarl aimed at this new enemy.

Rias's eyes widened as she saw the one who was about to fight it out with her newest peerage member was a handsome young man that had appearance of a man in his early twenties, and possessed shoulder length crimson red hair and blue-green eyes, similar to Rias' own.

Her elder brother, Sirzechs.

Damnit! She didn't want them to meet like this!

Naruto leaped backwards before landing on his left foot and pushing himself forward using the added speed and momentum to flip himself forward and slam his right leg out flat. Sirzech quickly leapt back to avoid the attack causing the extended leg to slam onto the ground, then dodged as the energy tails lashed out out at him, giving Naruto time to recover, leaning to his side before performing a fast-paced windmill maneuver, actually creating a bit of a whirlwind before kicking himself up to his feet and using the momentum to push himself right to Sirzechs without even pausing. Once near, he turned into a spin kick yet once again he avoided it by quickly placing his hands onto the incoming kick pushing it away from him. Though he was far from done as he actually lifted his body off the ground like he was leaping a fence and then rotated his hips and feet directly towards Naruto's face who unfortunately couldn't dodge the attack.

Rias winced slightly at the kicks to the face though they quickly cringed as her brother actually grabbed the stunned blond by the shoulders before pushing his body down enough to deliver a knee strike to his abdomen, actually causing air and spit to fly from his mouth. Yet he still wasn't done as Sirzech released his enemy before flipping backwards and having his back leg smash into Naruto's chin sending him flying.

At first glance it looked like he'd been dispatched, though it only lasted for an instance as Naruto quickly spun rapidly in midair before actually using his legs to push himself backwards and land on his feet. He slowly raised himself to standing position before dusting himself off. Sirzechs was still on guard watching the reincarnated devil spitting out some blood.

He didn't say anything and instead merely cracked his neck in response before responding, "Is that all you've got?"

Surprisingly, the redhead merely narrowed his eyes at the comment, his guard remained strong, "Of course not, that was just a warm up," Sirzechs' stance slowly shifted into a more offensive one as his eyes narrowed into a rather cold gaze, before he and his enemy both lunged. Sirzechs dodged a blow from Naruto and countering with a flying knee, which was followed up by a series of jabs, forearms and elbows to keep the blond from getting any breathing room. Finally, Naruto caught him with a forearm shot to the jaw, disorienting and stunning him, then a gut shot and a powerful front kick to his ribs. The fox-host followed up by kneeing Sirzechs in the stomach, making him double over as the wind was knocked out of him. As he did so, he grabbed the collar of Naruto's shirt and headbutted him but Naruto stabbed him with his chakra tails. After that, he grabbed Sirzechs' arm and twisted it backwards while smashing the point of his other arm's elbow into the older devil's shoulder hard enough to nearly dislocate it.

Sirzechs grit his teeth to bear the pain then twisted around and caught Naruto in a triangle hold and flung him off. Naruto used his momentum and thrust his hands out, rolling into a somersault to properly break his landing. As he did so, Sirzechs suddenly vanished into a static blur, only to reappear before Naruto with her palm on the ninja's stomach before he'd even completed the somersault. Spontaneously, Naruto was thrown brutally onto the opposing wall by a powerful shockwave expelled from Sirzechs' palm and the shinobi smashed through the wall behind him, bringing half of it down on him in a pile of rubble.

Sirzechs looked on, mildly impressed as Naruto pulled himself out of the rubble and a second later, Naruto and Sirzechs grappled with one another, tightly clasping each other's hands hard enough to draw blood, their eyes narrowing, mouths both set in a grim line, a power struggle now in the works.

Naruto smiled first, and his opponent mirrored him in kind.

As one, a shout worked its way up their throats, ripped its way out of their mouths, Naruto was the first to release, and Sirzechs winced as three lines of blood appeared upon his left cheek from the ninja's wickedly sharp claws.

Moments later, Naruto doubled over from a vicious kick in the gut, one that collapsed his stomach inward before he disappeared from sight in a flash of movement, now coming from behind him.

His fist passed through air, as he hit an afterimage, which soon faded away, leaving a rather furious blond in its wake.

Sirzechs suddenly appeared behind him and with a quick movement of his arms, slammed his fists down on the blond's neck...only for him to vanish in a plume of white smoke as the real Naruto came in from above, his hands intertwined, and he smashed down hitting the Crimson Satan solidly on the head.

A triumphant growl escaped him, as she was knocked flat to the ground, only for Sirzechs hands to slap out, breaking his fall, and allowing him to pivot his left leg into Naruto's neck in a violent jarring kick.

He cried out in pain, that blow snapping his head to the right due to the impact, yet he cartwheeled with the blow and and landed on his feet.

Seeing their opponent still revved to continue the fight, they each cocked a fist back, when they connected with the fist of the other, a shockwave created from a mix of Naruto's energy and Sirzechs releasing his own supernatural energy from his body at the exact point of impact spread out, driving them apart, and back into the ground.

The two titans couldn't help but smile as they skidded backwards, but Naruto slowed his skid early by applying chakra, and upon grinding to a halt, he laughed aloud,"Not bad, however...I'm just getting started!" said, punctuating his statement with a roar.

As Naruto roared, his demonic chakra extended outwards with devastating results. This outward destructive sphere of chakra was so intense it began to destroy the surrounding landscape and violently push back onto Sirzechs.

Quickly realizing the seriousness of the situation, Rias' elder sibling began to channel huge amounts of concentrated energy before a massive explosion erupted around his body, but leaving herself very much unharmed.

When the shockwaves of the collision of energy faded, Naruto quickly charged towards his target before leaping into the air while spinning his body to perform a flying round house kick.

As the kick came closer, Sirzechs raised his forearms to block the attack. Naruto grunted in annoyance when his leg connected to his arm and he remained still, not even registering the kick at all.

"My turn!" shouted the Satan before grabbing his ankle before throwing him. Naruto, however, was able to flip mid air and come skidding across the ground. When he looked up, he saw that the devil was now rushing at him with incredible amount of speed.

A punch directed at the shinobi's jaw only ended up caught by the said boy who winced slightly at the strength behind the punch. Blocking out the pain, Naruto sent a kick to the other man's midsection before letting go of his fist and kneeing him in the chin sending him skidding back a bit, but it wasn't enough to make him lose balance. As rias watched Naruto follow up with another attack, he was surprised when Sriechs smirked before stomping both feet into the ground as he leaped into the air and delivered a roundhouse kick to her brother's jaw, causing him to snap his head clockwise.

Naruto was only half surprised when Sirzechs' head snapped back in his direction with a sickening smile glued to his face. Sirzechs quickly grabbed hold of his arms before heaving his feet out of the ground and kicking Naruto with such speed and force, that it seemed like he was hit by a blur.

As the boy came crashing to a halt on the wall, he slowly eased himself out of the hole before ducking under a punch aimed at his chest as the force behind the punch that almost connected was enough to demolish that part of the wall leaving a gaping hole where the elder devil's fist had made contact.

Naruto appeared underneath Sirzechs before delivering an upward kick to his chin and sending him skywards. As Sirzechs soared through the air, Naruto then jumped after him before appearing behind him as he grabbed onto his midsection to keep him from escaping while pinning his arms to his sides.

As Sirzechs felt himself getting closer to the ground, he closed his eyes while Naruto released himself from him as he went crashing headfirst into the floor, smashing a hole through it.

"Not bad...but I'm t done yet!" yelled Sirzechs from inside the crater that was just made.

Naruto couldn't defend himself from Sirzechs as he vanished from his view only to appear in front of him to deliver am unbelievably powerful punch to his abdomen. The result ended up making Naruto go airborne with a great amount of blood shooting out of his mouth. A second later, he appeared behind him while he was still in the air and launched another powerful kick to his back.

Naruto groaned in pain from the two bone-breaking attacks, before he shrieked in pain as another punch slammed into his chest. Sirzechs was jarred as he was suddenly hit on the chest and sent flying by all three of his foe's energy tails, crashing into the ground and tumbling as he landed ten times harder than he should have.

Gasping, Naruto stood shakily as he watched as Sirzechs struggle to get up. As soon as he had, Naruto disappeared, leaving a trail of wind at his vacated place. Switching his sights upwards, Sirzechs saw the bestial descending at him. The blond sped at the pure-blooded devil and stormed a foot on him. Sirzechs evaded the assault but the aftershock winded him. Clutching his midriff,Sirzechs grinned haughtily. "Not bad."

Naruto said noting, but vanished in a blur of speed. The male redheaded devil leaped away, but something smashed into the small of his back with the force of a runaway freight train and sent him flying. Sirzechs landed on the other side of the chamber and panted tediously as he stood, rubbing the spot where he'd been hit. Assessing his injuries, Sirzechs smirked. "You caught me from behind. But that won't happen twice."

Naruto pummeled the ground with a fist loaded with chakra, shaking the chamber with tremendous quakes. Sirzechs did a few backflips to avoid the impact and when he got to the wall behind him, kicked off it, ramming Naruto with a sudden burst of acceleration, knocking the devil ninja onto the ground.

Naruto jumped to his feet before darting towards the current leader of Hell with vicious conviction; performing a clothesline, Naruto slammed Sirzech onto the unforgiving ground in a horrendous impact.

Recovering from the previous assault, Sirzech blitzed away before reappearing behind his orange-red energy enshrouded enemy. Without hesitation, the male Gremory sent a devastating kick at Naruto's waist, successfully hurling the ninja soaring through another wall and the outcome was disastrous as another defenseless wall was demolished.

With blinding speed, Sirzech dashed towards Naruto. The blond's eyes widened and he raised his arm to block any blow the redhead would give him. Sirzech disappeared in the blink of an eye and reappeared behind Naruto, kicking the ninja up into the air. The red-haired devil jumped up into the air and was about to give him a knee in the back when Naruto suddenly turned around in midair and threw his arms out, his demonic aura extending and the claws of power launching at him, enlarging as they did. Eyes wide, Sirzech managed to turn around in time to only get a small scratch on his arm.

The ninja narrowed his eyes as he landed and Sirzech raised a bow in confusion, "Didn't you have three tails?" he asked, wondering why he only saw two before he got his answer as the third tail burst from the ground and wrapped around Sirzech's ankles, pinning them together as Naruto raised his arms over his head, his energy shroud mimicking his movements as the arms extended again and the clawed hands enlarged again as they were clamped tightly together befor Naruto used the chakra limbs to strike down with a forceful two-handed blow onto the ruler of the Realm of Damnation. The attack hit Sirzech head-on and struck him down onto the ground. Naruto kept up the assault, continuously pounding the energy generated limbs down onto his opponent like one would use a hammer to strike a very annoying nail. After a few more hours of this, Naruto whipped his chakra tial up and around, swinging Sirzech around like a lasso before releasing him and he smashed a crater into one of the few remaining relatively intact walls of the room.

After a few second, Sirchech's eyes opened fully and he pried himself out out of the impact impression, got back on his feet. and dusted himself off. "Whoa, that did more damage than I thought it would. You definitely aren't a normal guy."

"What?! That was... You're supposed to be down and out after that attack!" Naruto exclaimed.

"I had to admit, that attack did hurt me, but an attack like that won't really affect me." Sirzech folded his arms across his chest. "That's not to say you're not pretty good." The red-haired Lord of Hell suddenly dashed forward and boxed Naruto in the sturem with such strength that one could swear that his fist was pushing against Naruto's spine. The blonde's eyes widened and his pupils shrunk as his world faded to black, his aura dissipating as he lost consciousness.

Sirzechs nodded in satisfaction then turned to his little sister, "Ria-tan!" he cried, then enveloped her in his arms and pressed her so close that it was as if he were trying to fuse them into Siamese through sheer force of will alone, even as he bombarded her with questions.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?! He didn't scare you?! If he did, I'll make him regret it, don't you worry! Nobody's gonna do ANYTHING bad to my Ria-tan as long as I'm around! Believe me! As long as I'm around and can do anything about it, you'll always be happy! So what did he do to you?! Disobedient new piece, don't worry! I'll see to it he's punished properly for upsetting you!" he said, river-like streams of thick crocodile tears running down his face.

Rias groaned from the way this was just like her overprotective older brother to use things like this as an excuse to hug her...or maybe that was from her spine nearing the end of its endurance? She couldn't tell.

"I'm fine, onii-sama, the newest member of my peerage just surprised me that he had so much power." Rais said, trying the squirm free, even trying to push off her elder brother using her legs. Rias truly loved her sibling, honest to all things Holy and Damned alike, she did, but he was just too...smothering for her, sometime...like now!

As that, Sirzechs looked taken aback, then his expression changed from concern to beaming at her and hugged her even tighter, going on a rant that he was so proud and happy that his beloved little sister had found such an undoubtedly powerful addition to her peerage.

Rias winced. This would be so much more bearable if Sirzechs wasn't doing an impression of a human-sized vice! Her face was starting to turn the color of a blueberry from lack of being able to breathe when something caught her brother in the back of the head with a bang, and his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward the same way Naruto had when Sirzechs had knocked him out, pinning Rias under him before the one who had come to her rescue rolled him off of her and Rias saw it was a beautiful woman that appeared to be in her early twenties, with silver hair and matching eyes. Her hair flowed all the way down to her back, featuring a long braid on each side with small blue bows at the ends, while the rest was let down, ending in twin braids. The woman was wearing a blue and white French maid outfit with long sleeves and a white maid headband over her head, with red lipstick as a cosmetic accessory.

Rias sighed, glad to have use of her lungs again, then smiled at the woman, who, inspite of looking otherwise, wasn't a member of the Gremory family's staff, and was instead her older sister-in-law.

"Thanks, Grayfia..." Rias told her, seeing the bent cast iron frying pan in the woman's hand as the silverette helped her stand.

Her family member by marriage looked as the pan and sighed, tossing it aside and glared at her husband's prone form. "I loose more pans that way...blasted thick skull of his...you all right, Rias-san?" Grayfia asked.

Rias nodded, then turned to look at Naruto with hurt and pity in her eyes. "I'm not hurt...but I'm not okay either..."

Following her gaze, Grayfia nodded to her sister-in-law,"Difficult servant?"

Rias sighed, "There's a lot tearing at him...so much anger...and as much as I want to help, there's a wall there."

Grayfia nodded. She was well aware of the way the Gremory were, kind and caring to an almost unconditional degree. It was one of the things she loved about her ridiculous husband enough to forgive him for the things he did wrong. Of course being unable to help someone that needed it would bother a Gremory.

"Anger can be useful that way, it keeps you from focusing on the things that bring you despair, and then there's how a person's past shapes them as well, all I can advise you to do is give him time and not give up on getting through to him." she said, then bent down and dragged her husband out of the room by his ankles, leaving Rias alone with her thoughts and the reluctant, unconscious devil.

A smokescreen? That did seem the case, recalling how Naruto had freaked out upon learning he'd been turned into a devil. That was always hard at first for humans.

Ok...if that was the root of the problem, Rias at least knew where she had to start to be able to get through to Naruto. The Evil piece system changed Humans into full blown devils, right down to the souls, but their hearts...their views on what they believed...who they were as a person...THAT had to be either retained or abandoned by their own personal choice.

Rias smiled.

At least she knew what she had to do, she just had to help him realize this aspect of his new life as a devil. That he could still be who he was before if he wanted to, all he had to do was choose to stay as the kind of person he had been prior to becoming a devil. That if he wanted to, he could still be himself! Sure convincing him would be hard, but it was clear all she had to do was let him know that option was there and all he had to do was take it. She knew he would!

Placing her new peerage member back in the bed, Rias felt hope bloom inside her that she hadn't been wrong to save him. Tucking him in and smiling, Rias left the room to see Akeno waiting for her.

"Trouble, Rias?" the half-Fallen Angel asked.

Rias shook her head. Akeno was, in fact, close enough to call Rias by her first name while maintaining their master-servant relationship, the two were like sisters more than anything else.

"Not really, in fact I know what he needs now. It's getting him to be convinced about that he still has the freedom of choice about who and how he wants to be as a person that I have to figure out." the redhead told her sister-figure.

Akino's eyes gleamed, overjoyed at hearing that. "How can I help?" she asked at once.

Rias smiled, her mind buzzing with ideas on how to help Naruto come to accept his new life.


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto gawked. Ok...where was this?! Last thing he remembered was being knocked out, so he should have been in his mindscape. But this wasn't a sewer.

He stood within a deeply forested area. Sunlight peeked through a few gaps in the canopy of the dense vegetation while most of the area remained darkened. It wasn't foreboding though; more like peaceful. Sacred, almost.

Naruto followed a small dirt path that broke off in several directions to various parts. He wasn't sure why, but he felt that going straight was the best choice. He whistled to himself as he continued down the small path. He didn't even know how long it was before he came to something that he was certain was what he was looking for.

There before him lay a cave. A large one, to be exact. All around it was a series of pillars that ended in balled tops, four on the left and four on the right, that, to Naruto, seemed like some kind of large electrical towers, and one was on top that had a pointed top the had a ball on the end of the point. The one thing that he definitely recognized was a large paper tag that hung from the center if the cave's mouth with the inscription of 'seal' on it.

No way...it couldn't be! Could his mind have changed this much?! There was only one was to know for sure.

"Hey fox!" he shouted and saw something in the cave shift and the Kyubbi no kitsune appeared at the mouth of the cave.

Naruto yelped in surprise.

The fox looked...hyper emaciated. As it was, the demon's skin looked to be the only thing holding it's bones together.

What was more, he saw that the tower-like objects had glowing orange-red strands of energy that connecting them to the nine-tails. Naruto had never seen anything like them before.

**"Damn these...evil...pieces...of shit! Vamperizing...my chakra!"**

Evil Pieces..." Naruto said, recalling what Rias had said she'd put in him to turn him into a devil. So...theses towers were actually the pieces themselves...or at least a mental projection of them. So these things were sucking the fox dry?

He wondered...

Naruto focused on the Evil pieces and the flow of energy stopped and the super-sized chess pieces stopped glowing and faded to the same shade of bright red as Rias' hair.

The fox glared at him then muttered something under it's breath. Naruto could have sworn it was the word _'Thanks'_.

"Ooooh-kayyy...now that that's taken care of...what's going on with my mindscape?" Naruto asked, looking around.

**"This is how your mind would have looked if it weren't for all that crap Konoha put you through because I was in you."** the kitsune growled.

Naruto turned to look at the demon. Say what the huh?! So what was up with the sewer from before if this was what his minscape was supposed to be like by default?!

"Shit… since when was my mind so fucked up?" Naruto wondered.

**"Did you think this place being a sewer was NORMAL? You hold in many things about yourself; usually your more aggressive traits and they build within you. Your mind had always been a wreck because of it, thus, reflects how you "hold in" those emotions by appearing as a sewer."** Kyuubi explained to the blond and Naruto blinked before giving the creature a look.

"So basically...my minds better now because...?" Naruto said.

**"Mindset on your Devilhood...the fact is that when that Rias girl mentioned that you were a devil, you finally vented how you felt. You Never allowed yourself to explode like that at the idea of being seen as anything other than human before. It was like a dam breaking."** the fox grunted.

"So when I lashed out at Rias, I let go of the build up? Ok, I get that. But what's up with my chakra control. It feels like my chakra levels shrank or something." Naruto said, getting the ancient demon rolled it's eyes.

**"Your chakra capacity hasn't been reduced, Moron. Just that with me in you, you're chakra network had to become highly overdeveloped because my demon chakra was too strong for a human body. Since you're a devil now, your body can handle my power better and that threw off your control because of how used to it you were with your control being harder from back when you were human."**

Naruto blinked. So his chakra hadn't reduced, his body could just deal with having so much power better? Sweet. Wait...Naruto made a pinched face as if he had eaten something sour that had gone rotten and moldy, he took that back. If his body had gotten better at having so much chakra from his losing his being human, he didn't like that as much.

**"If you want proof...your body'll be unmarked when you check again." **

"The scars are gone?!" he asked.

**"Like I said, you're body can handle demonic power better now, so my chakra can fully fix your body without strain or drawback...that Gremory girl's help in your recovery actually boosted the speed of how quick it went. Gotta say, interesting way of tending the wounded...both people up against one another with nothing but their birthday suits, pressing flesh..."** the beast said snickering as the end.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait wait..." Naruto said, holding up his hand to cut the fox off, "You mean to say, if I've got this right, that Rias girl has been helping heal me...by stripping me down completely, stripping herself down completely, and pressing flesh against me when we're both bare butt _naked_?!"

The fox actually laughed, **"Energy transference. The clothes get in the way...so yes!"**

Stifling a nosebleed and then looking at the fox, Naruto said the first thing that popped into his head. "...I swear, Ero-sennin would love that chick..." Naruto deadpanned.

The starved-looking Kitsune nodded in agreement with a smirk. **"True...the man's too horny, even to be allowed in the circle of Hell that represents lust, he's just that bad. I suppose it's a good thing that you're too mad to focus on that girl's gender."**

Naruto blanched "Uh...excuse me?"

The biju snickered, apparently going to love what it was going to say a little before it spoke to it's warden again, **"That pink-haired teammate of yours...she psychologically conditioned you to be Gynophobic with her treatment of you." the demon stated. "It's obvious, you just have to look at the facts: ****1) She's constantly abusive to you for anything and everything. ****2) Your first kiss being with another guy. ****3) Your kunoichi teammate gets mad when you show an interest in women. ****Looking at it from the outside, what am I supposed to believe other than the truth: that Sakura girl you work with is a yaoi fangirl and she deliberately bent you so you were as straight as a circle to try making it so you and Sasuke became a couple in order to entertain herself."**

Naruto's jaw dropped. SAY WHAT?!

"Hold up! Hold up! Hold up! Time out! Stop the presses!" Naruto cried, putting his hands in front of himself in the capital-T gesture to have things stop. He looked at the bane of his existence, going green in the face, "You're saying you think that I'm..."

**"Not by choice. But yes."** the fox cackled, loving how much this was making Naruto squirm.** "Don't take it the wrong way, seeing as how I was stuck in you since the day you were born, I more than anyone else, understand you weren't that way before, but that pink ape on your team won't allow you to be straightened out!"**

Naruto backed away a few feet before his legs gave out under him and he fell to the ground, his knees against his chest and gripping his head as though he was in pain. "I don't believe this...I'm not gay! I'M NOT GAY! I'm really sick of having to tell people this!" he moaned.

**"You know that it's the truth, then again...that cherry blossom's NOT HERE! You could be cured...AND you're already surrounded by those hot vixens Rias, Koneko, and Akeno for when you get over that ****psychologically-conditioned Gynophobia****!"** the fox laughed.

"Jiminy Cricket you're not!" Naruto snapped and the super-sized Evil Pieces suddenly surged in response to Naruto's anger, tearing away larger chunks of the fox's demonic power, making it cry out in agony as the Evil Pieces resumed glowing the way they had before.

Naruto looked at the Evil Pieces and had to confess that there was one good use for these things: disciplining the fox the Yondaime had put in him and had inadvertently made his life a miserable Hell growing up. Sure he knew why the man had done that, to save the lives of everyone in Konoha, Naruto included, but as much as he understood that and as much as he admired the man, it was hard not to hold the miseries Naruto had to endure in the past against him.

Fading from his mindscape, Naruto awoke to see that the room that he'd woken up in before had been fixed up as if the fight had never happened. He shook his head and looked at the door and window, making use of the red and black eyes which had once occupied Sasuke's head.

Dammit! He groaned. Not again! Those damn barriers were up again!

Naruto, from the mission in Nami no Kuni, knew the Sharingan had two separate elements: The piercing eye that caught every minute detail and the hypnotic eye which mesmerized the ones who looked at it. Sure, he had been fighting Haku at the time, but that didn't mean he hadn't heard Zabuza's voice when he was telling Kakashi-sensei what the rogue ninja had figured out about how the Uchiha dōjutsu worked:

_"First with the piercing eye you copy my movements instantly. This replica of movements makes me doubt my own thoughts. Once I was shaken you infiltrated my mind, waiting for the slightest flow and intermediate my actions, seeking out any hints to my next move. You time it precisely, waiting for the right instant that my mind becomes unfocused and you created an illusion with your hypnotic eye. You induce me to make hand signs when you were making the same signs so you seem to be copying me when actually you're controlling my movements."_

And, as he was learning first-hand right now, one of the main powers of the dōjutsu kekkei genkai was that the Sharingan was able to see energy flow. The Sharingan itself gave color to chakra, allowing the wielder to differentiate them and, while not on the level of the Byakugan, could even see chakra through solid surfaces.

He really wished he could turn the dōjutsu off, but as he knew from Kakashi-Sensei, the Sharingan in its active state couldn't be shut off if it was a transplant. Otherwise Kakashi would simply do that as opposed to constantly keeping his left eye closed and covered up with his hitai-ate. But as odd as it was, Naruto didn't feel any strain at all from these implanted eyes, as if his new body was _overqualified_ to have the Sharingan. If anything, except for seeing energy, they felt like normal eyes to him with how he didn't feel there was any strain on his chakra at all.

That freaked him out a bit.

At the very least, he could figure out the normal Sharingan. While he had no idea how to get that "Mangekyō" level, Naruto knew one thing for sure: if you had to kill the ones who mattered to you to get it the way Sasuke kept alluding to during their fight, it was a power the blond DIDN'T want!

But back to the matter at hand...how was he supposed to get out of here? This was going to drive him crazy! He wanted to escape! But what could he do? Swap himself with some...thing outside of...the...

"Ye gods, its perfect!"

Slapping a hand to his forehead for not thinking of it before, he placed his hands into a familiar cross seal.

"Kage Bunshin."

No sooner had the shadow clone appeared, than Naruto made another seal and was enveloped in a plume of smoke before he appeared outside the room he had been trapped in. After summoning a shadow clone outside the room, he had quickly performed a kawarimi no jutsu in order to instantly swap places with it in order to get out of his imprisonment. Sure he could have used something else, but the room he'd just escaped was all he had seen of this place, hence, the clone.

He looked around. Well...that worked!

Ok. Get out of the room...check. Now all he had to do was find his equipment, escape this devil-infested place, and find a way to return to Konoha and hopefully Tsunade-Baa-chan could find a way to remove those Evil Pieces from his body and restore his humanity to him.

Sounded like a plan to Naruto.

Now, where was...AH! There was the energy-radiating silhouette of "Little-Miss-Wicked-is-Good" Rias who had made a Devil out of him! Still...he frowned at seeing how many others were in this place. Damn...

Ah well, he'd evaded ANBU black Ops. when running around in bright orange, how hard could it be to stealth his way through a mansion full of devils be? And good thing for his new eyes too (Naruto couldn't believe he'd just thought that) since he could keep track of everyone in here by seeing the energy coming off their bodies due to the Sharingan and avoid them using skills like the transformation jutsu or using chakra to stick to places like the ceiling to avoid being spotted by them.

He had no weapons. He had to do this with his bare hands and his chakra.

Which suited him just fine.

Sweeping his eyes across the area to see where each of the ones in this place were and how many of them whose energy he could see and where they were, he nodded to himself. He had to do this quick and clean. Nobody knowing he was there, nobody knowing he was gone. Good thing he was a ninja. By definition, that was how he was supposed to work anyway. The blond made his way to where he saw Rias's energy coming off her.

As Naruto walked through the halls towards the femme fatale's room, he looked from one end of the hall to the other cautiously. He narrowed his transplanted Sharingan eyes and soon spotted the energy from Rias. _'Alright, just need to find her,'_ he thought, as he slowly made his way forward. The hall was lined with windows. From those windows pale moonlight shined through. It illuminated the hall enough that he likely wouldn't run into anything.

It also cast dark shadows along the places he wasn't. It'd also make it easy for anyone else to see him. Of course that was only if they were actually awake. He idly glanced out a nearby window to see the moon hanging in the air. He admired it for only a moment before he crept forward. Judging by how high in the air it was, he assumed that anyone else in the place was asleep.

He crept down the hallways regardless. The last thing he wanted to do was make a lot of noise. Waking up anyone would only make it that much harder to get around this place. Especially considering all the other energy signatures he saw around the place alongside of Rias'. He crept forward and pushed up against the nearby wall. He glanced down the hall to make sure no one was coming.

He kept his eyes open as he made his way down the carpeted hall. He saw something approach and looked to either side before flipping onto the wall and crawling onto the ceiling. As he did he nearly lost his footing. _'Oi, that's right. Chakra control is off,'_ he recalled as he pulled back on his chakra. Measuring the amount he needed was more difficult than he liked to admit. Further, using too much right now was not an option.

_'Just hang in there…'_ he thought as he watched the man below him. He had a flashlight in hand as he roamed the halls. He was dressed in a dapper ensemble common among butlers. Naruto assumed that the man was one. Which given how big this place appeared, meant that Rias was very well off. _'That could make things difficult,'_ he admitted to himself.

He'd have to keep his eyes open for servants. He gasped softly as his chakra gave way and he fell to the ground with a thump. The butler paused and turned to investigate. Naruto quickly hid behind a nearby curtain. He breathed softly as the butler examined the area and then shrugged. He walked off a moment later and Naruto exhaled a relieved sigh. He really needed to be more careful.

He slipped out from behind the curtain and continued down the hall. He crept into a large room with the door outside across from him and stairs going up. He noticed a pair of pillars was to either side of the stairway. He also turned towards where the doors were and saw there were windows about it. There were two rows, each row was comprised of three large windows. Judging by the design he'd say they were decorative only.

_'Damn, that could've been useful,'_ he thought to himself. He then turned back to the pillars and rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. _'Those could be useful,'_ he noted only to halt as he remembered his chakra control was shot. _'Better not to risk it,'_ he decided with a sigh. That meant he had to do it the hard way. With that in mind, he checked with his transplanted Sharingan once more and saw Rias' energy was above him.

_'Okay, just need to find her now,'_ he thought and took a deep breath. He made his way up the steps calmly and carefully. He didn't want to make any noise to draw someone's attention. Given the butler from before he wouldn't be surprised to see other servants were out and about. His vigilance paid off as a maid turned the corner up the stairs.

He quickly flipped off of the stairs to hang by the railings. He looked up and watched the maid walk down the stairs before he quietly and quickly climbed back up. He crouched down low and crept up the stairs. He glanced back every now and then to ensure the maid wasn't coming back. Soon he reached the next floor and looked from side to side.

There was no sign of servants. However there were no more stairs either._ 'Probably more stairways elsewhere,'_ he decided. Although he also had to wonder why anyone would need a four story tall mansion. It felt silly in his opinion. Regardless, this wasn't his home and he had more important things to do. He crept down the hall and continued towards Rias location.

He idly took note of the outside as he passed by a window. He could now see what appeared to be a large forested area passed the mansions grounds. _'That'll be the easiest way to get away from this place,'_ he decided. He then continued his way forwards. Knowing where he was going was fine, but for now he still had to find Rias. Not to mention all his gear.

That in mind he continued down the hall at a sedate pace. Both eyes and ears kept open for anything odd. He halted a time or two when he could make out the sound of footsteps. Not trusting his chakra control he slipped behind nearby curtains. A maid passed a few moments later. Dressed in an outfit he'd say actually appeared proper for what she was. _'Unlike those things Ero-Sennin liked,'_ he thought with a frown.

He continued on and came to another flight of stairs. _'Finally,'_ he thought. However he then halted and frowned deeply. Unlike the last, this one was enclosed. He wouldn't be able to hang off of the side if someone came down from above._ 'Going to have to make this quick,'_ he decided. He didn't run but he was quick in his pace as he went up. He stopped and peered around the corner when he reached the next floor.

_'Right side,'_ he thought with a glance, _'clear,'_ he noted. _'Left side,'_ he mused as he turned, _'also clear,'_ he noted. That done he breathed a sigh of relief and walked out and continued towards Rias energy signature. It was still above him however, which irked him just a tiny bit. _'Just how big is this place!?'_ he mentally demanded. He shook that thought off and continued on his way.

He stopped when he heard something approach. He saw the shape of a large dog and widened his eyes. _'Okay, not using the curtain trick here,'_ he thought and jumped up onto the ceiling. He then quickly made his way forward. He glanced down after a moment to see that the 'dog' was actually a large wolf. Pinned to its collar was a flashlight it was using to look around.

_'That seems… odd,'_ he decided. _'Who puts a flashlight on their dog?'_ he mused to himself. He then thought of the Inuzuka and paused. _'Never mind,'_ he thought with a sigh. He then gasped as his control gave out and he fell to the ground. The wolf turned and rushed towards him. _'Shit!'_ he thought and bolted down the hall. He turned when he came to a flight of stairs and quickly made his way up.

The stairs, like the last set, were also enclosed. He mentally groaned and palmed his face tiredly. _'Now I've really got to book it,'_ he thought as he quickly made his way up. He heard the sound of barking and grimaced. _'Now the servants will be looking for someone, just great,'_ he thought to himself. With that in mind he quickened his pace towards where Rias energy was coming from.

He crouched low as he saw someone rushing towards him from ahead. _'Probably heard the dog,'_ he rationalized. He slipped behind a curtain just as they passed him by. He then slipped out and continued on his way. Moving quickly he came to an intersection and used his Sharingan to look for Rias. _'Left,'_ he thought and turned down the hall. He crept along until he found himself at her door.

He looked to either side and then approached the door. He jiggled the handle for a moment and frowned. 'Locked,' he noted to himself. He checked to see if he had anything on hand he could use to pick it. _'Kuso,'_ he mentally swore when he found nothing. _'It'd take me too long to go back and find something to pick the lock,'_ he thought to himself.

Furthermore, the servants, that wolf, and anything else in this place would be more precautious this time…

_'So I need to break into her room. Wonderful,_' he thought sarcastically. He idly looked back down the hall and then to the door with a frown. _'The locks on these kinds of doors aren't as strong as others,'_ he noted to himself. He then gripped door handle. _'Let's hope this works,'_ he thought as he stood up. He pressed in and then twisted the door handle roughly a few times.

He heard several grinding noises and grimaced. _'Please don't wake up,'_ he thought as he twisted up and down and then pushed on the handle at an angle. A few more rough twists and he shoved on it and heard a snap as the handle broke. _'Well, no one ever said not to leave evidence,'_ he mused to himself. He pulled the handle out and then pushed the inner piece and twisted until he snapped the spring of the lock.

With that done he pushed the door open and slipped inside the room silently. Once inside he reached out and placed the handle back onto the doorframe to make it appear as if nothing was amiss. _'Won't hold up if they actively check, but hopefully I'll be long gone by then,'_ he thought to himself as he turned to look at the room.

Sheesh! Looking at the décor of her room, Naruto could almost swear he was somewhere back home. There were certainly a huge enough collection of objects and artifacts that her room would have fit in back there.

Wall scrolls...samurai armor...figures of Shinto deities (Naruto had to wonder how THAT worked, a devil with statues of gods in her bedroom)...kokeshi dolls...folding tatami mats all along the floor...shoji and bamboo blinds...and tons of other things that reminded him of being home, she was even sleeping in a zen platform bed with a shiki futon that had a kakefuton comforter, along with buckwheat hull pillows! Place looked like a Feudal Lord's room!

Ok...maybe finding his ninja tools in this girl's room wouldn't be as easy as he thought.

Naruto couldn't help but gulp as the thought of that if Rias had this much of a major flair on the cultural style, it made it easy to imagine her trying to take over the Elemental Nations.

The idea seriously freaked him out.

He made his way to Rias. Maybe she had them with her rather than hidden somewhere among all this stuff? Would certainly be easier than turning this needle-in-a-haystack the girl called a room upside down looking for ninja gear. As he got near her, she turned over, pushing the futon cover away and Naruto had to stifle another Rias-associated nosebleed.

Rias slept completely naked!?

_'DAMN YOU ERO-SENNIN! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! I JUST KNOW IT!'_ Naruto mentally raged. What drove him crazy was that a certain part of him between his waist and knees was suddenly as erect and hard as a steel rod at the sight!

He backed away, horrorstruck over this devil body's reaction—this utter betrayal! Yet the part of him that had to deal with exposure to Jiraiya's nature noted that Rias' body measurements were B32-W22-H32...Gah! He shook his head. Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! He backed away from the thirteen-year-old devil girl as if he was terrified of being infected by some plague.

He had to get his equipment and get out of here...sooner the better!

Looking around furiously, he sighed as he saw his supply pouch and his kunai/shuriken holster on a shelf, he could see his own chakra all over them like fingerprints. Creeping over to avoid waking the female in the room so he didn't get an unholy beating if she found out he was in her room while she was asleep and have her jump to conclusions...something her state of dress or lack of therein wouldn't help much in detouring...he picked up the fanny pack-style pouch and opened it, giving a brief inventory inspection.

Kakuremino no Jutsu cloth...check, Makibishi spikes...check, flash bombs...check, smoke bombs...check, Kunai knives...check, shuriken...check, explosive tags...check, military ration pills...check, first aid kit, fully stocked...check, suppression seals...check. signal flairs...check, sleep gas bombs...check...poison gas bombs...check. Collapsible demon wind Shuriken...check. Diamond-edged steel Zankosen wires...check. He looked over the rest of his equipment after that. All accounted for.

He sighed and looked at the ceiling, seems that for once, God (if he even existed) threw him some slack. Maybe the Big Guy Upstairs knew that he wanted to shed his unwanted devilhood and had finally decided to give the young shinobi some help. Then he fought down a snort at the idea. Yeah right! If it took being unwillingly turned into a devil to have God give a damn about him, how much of a "Supreme Benevolence" could the mook be?!

Strapping the pouch back to his waist then the holster back to his right thigh, he then made his way over to Rias silently, took out a kunai and raised it over his head. He looked down at the Gremory girl that had changed him, part of him wanting to actually kill her for what had happened to him. His whole life, he's been treated like he was some unholy monster, then because he wanted to do what was right, he literally woke up and she told he was a devil now? How else was he supposed to act in that situation except with anger? Still...the fact was Rias was under no obligation to, but still saved him, and only did what she had due to there not being any other option available in time to keep him alive. As much as she had done to him, as much as he despised her...

"No..." he said. There had to be another way, a better way than this.

He put the kunai knife away before kneeling beside the sleeping devil-girl.

"...I owe you, I'll admit that. You saved my life, I'll just walk away and let you keep yours." he whispered in her ear, then stood and turned to walk away before a hand grabbed his wrist. Turning again, he saw Rias holding his hand, still sleeping, but that there were tears pooling on the sides of her closed eyelids.

At that, Naruto's eyes widened in complete astonishment.

_'Somebody, a girl no less, is actually crying because I'm leaving?!'_ Naruto thought. This was completely outside his reference. Having never even gotten a date or been kissed by a girl, he didn't know how to handle anything like this. He slowly and carefully reached for her wrist and delicately removed her fingers one at a time, treating this like she was a scary device—one that might explode if handled incorrectly. And knowing how short-fused _human_ women were as far as their tempers, he was willing to bet that wasn't far from the literal truth with female devils!

As he walked away from her before she could make another attempt to latch onto him, Naruto shook his head. While Naruto wasn't religious by any stretch of imagination, his own life experiences had made sure that, thanks to the villagers that despised him, he was aware that Devils were regarded as beings that had to be evil, wicked, brutal, bad, scum, wrong, brute, and vicious. Beings that were considered "evil" and "bad" existences BECAUSE they existed at all in the first place.

Letting someone, especially someone he had a reason to hate, live didn't seem very devil-like to him. He smirked at that. Well...he never had been one to follow the norm before. He saw no reason to start now. As long as he had a say in the matter, he would choose to be different.

"I'll find my own way." he decided, feeling pleased with the rightness of the action. Looking around, he spied a window and grinned.

Then he remembered when Rias and her group had shown him their bat wings and he wondered if he could do the same thing, when they sprouted from his back and flourished a bit in response to his surprise.

_'So the wings show up at will, huh? Gotta admit that's kinda cool...' _Naruto had to mentally admit. After all, who wouldn't like being able to fly whenever they wanted? Making his way to the window, Naruto tested the unfamiliar muscles in his back and the wings flapped a tiny bit. He hoped he had this right. As much as he was (admittedly) looking forward to flying, he didn't know the first thing about it. Still...he was a kinesthetic learner, the kind that needed to learn through trial and error, and through hands-on training. Besides, if birds did it with this literal flight-or-fall bit, why couldn't he?

As he kept trying to get his wings to flap as much as he could, he opened the window and took a deep breath and jumped from it. Yet his attempts to try to force himself to learn how to fly weren't met with success as he tried to figure out which part of this body controls the movement of the wings and he spun and tumbled through the air and...

"WAAAAAHHHHHHH-OOF!"

...crashed face-down into the law outside of the Gremory household. Thankfully Naruto didn't break any bones. It seems this new devil body he was stuck with was built to take a beating.

"Ok...learn to fly...need to learn to fly..." he grunted, then pushed his face out of the grass and shook his head to clear it of the stars and colored spots dancing before his vision before cracking his neck to rid it of the kinks caused by the crash and then stood and stretched. When all his joints had produced a satisfying pop, he looked behind him and sneered up at the House of Gremory.

"Well...I'm out of that place, at least." he muttered, then glared at his wings and they shrank back into his back until they vanished as if they had never been there, not even his clothes were damaged at all by it.

Naruto grunted, he would've been more impressed with that if his wings had done that AFTER they had worked when he had needed them to. Ah well, he smirked and walked off, he had no idea where he was actually going, but he felt it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

* * *

As she awoke, stretching before she took a shower and freshened up, Rias kept replaying the fight between her new servant and her brother over and over in her head as she dressed, then went over to her desk and picked up an old tome on space–time transportation techniques, looking for for clues on how to pinpoint different realities as she looked through it.

As a Devil that was a veteran from the Great War between Heaven and Hell, someone that was considered as a genetic anomaly ten times more powerful than the original Lucifer, one of the three known Super Devils, and the leader of the Four Great Satans, and how he had an overwhelming mastery of his Power of Destruction, was a master hand-to-hand combatant, as well as a master of magic, it wasn't surprising that even with as much as he'd held back in their fight that her brother had outclassed Naruto so much, that he'd even LET the blond hit him for hours with those overhead hammer-blows. Not that Naruto wasn't a good fighter in his own right, Rias had to confess that, he had done pretty well against Sirzech, especially seeing as how he was a fledgling devil, freshly reincarnated and unused to his new level in physical ability and that level of control over his demonic aura, which Rias guessed he had gotten due to the Evil Pieces changing him. After all, from the way he had freaked out upon learning he was turned into a devil, it was obvious that he wasn't a hybrid, and what kind of purebred human had access to demonic powers like that without being changed into a devil first? Still...the gap in experience between the two was too big.

It made Rias wonder what her newest family member would be like once he got use to his beyond-human body and got some more experience fighting. Maybe he could even free her from the ball-and-chain that was that arrogant furnace, Riser...

Rias vehemently halted that thought, shaking her head. She couldn't be that selfish.

To get her mind off that, she turned to the task she'd taken up yesterday since her meeting with the blond and she'd tried learning where he was from. While nearly all devils with the exception of young ones, namely newly-reincarnated ones that used to be humans, already could use transportation for summon request contracts with those willing to do business with them, she was looking for a way to trace energy signatures so that she could find out where Naruto was from. Get him home, and hopefully learn more about him and, if everything went well, get him not to be so angry with her and her peerage. She needed to let him know about the laws of the underworld, but if he was too hostile to listen, it wouldn't be any good, so she wanted to have something to offer him that he wouldn't be able to turn down.

That meant making him an offer he couldn't refuse.

...And then there had been the odd dream that she'd suddenly had last night. What was it about?

She was so focused on her self-appointed task that when there was a pounding at her door, she jumped and banged her knees on the underside of the deck she sat at. Opening the door, she was surprised at seeing her brother standing on the other side, a deeply troubled expression on his face that told Rias she was going to hate whatever this was about as much as she hated Riser Phoenix, if not more so.

"Family meeting. Now. All peerage members." he said, his voice hard, then walked away, doubtlessly going to inform the rest of the household, and left Rias completely bewildered.

Sighing and setting the book aside, she went out and noticed something odd that troubled her for some reason: the handle on her door was broken. She frowned but figured her brother must have done it earlier when he was trying to get her attention before his hammering on her door had gotten her attention. Sighing at that, Rias went and got Akeno, Kiba and Koneko, telling them what was going on, then went to Naruto's room and hesitated, before deciding to forge ahead and removed the barrier over the door and opened it, instantly being met with a frown from the one within it.

"What now?" he muttered.

Rias winced. Still with the anger? She recalled what Grayfia had said about him: Anger was useful when it kept focus off of the things that bring a person despair.

Just how bad was his life before?

"Well...family meeting was called, all peerage members to be included. And like it or not, since you're part of my peerage now..." she trailed off with a grimace upon seeing his expression at the mention of being part of her group.

"Orders from up top?" he asked with distaste. Rias nodded and he groaned, rolling his black and red eyes before scowling and he shoved his way past her and her peerage's other members rather rudely. "Let's just get this over with..." he muttered.

"Jerk." Kiba said, scowling after the other blond.

Rias sighed, turning to her knight piece-holder. "Just...he needs time to adjust is all. He's difficult, but that's because he doesn't like devils. So just please try tolerating his attitude. Think about how would you feel about being turned into a reincarnated Fallen Angel? That's why he's acting this way."

Kiba made a look of utter disgust at that. He loathed Fallen Angels. "Fine, guess I can understand that." he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. The group made their way to the main meeting hall of the Gremory household and Rias froze at who all was there.

What made Rias' gut clinch was the fact that not only was her brother and his full peerage there: Souji Okita, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, Surtr Second, and Bahamut, along with Grayfia, but so was her mother and father with theirs, and her nephew Millicas Gremory, along with all the staff of the House of Gremory.

Yeah...she wasn't going to like this at all!

Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko must have all felt the same because they shuffled forwards, looking as though they were at a funeral as they made their way to join everyone else.

"You're all here, good." Sirzechs said, then he looked at Naruto in shock and confusion, making Naruto sweat a bit. "You're here?! How's that possible?!"

Rais winced, she didn't like the sound of that, her brother wasn't expecting Naruto to be here. The feeling of dread increased as she sat down in one of the chairs, her group taking places behind her.

"So what's this about?" she asked, seeing her newest peerage member suddenly look much more nervous, his feet started tapping on the floor, obviously anxious to run. Rias turned to him and tried for a reassuring smile. From how much he was sweating, it didn't help.

Sirzechs nodded at his sister's question, knowing this wasn't the time to stand on formalities.

He snapped his fingers and a movie theater-sized screen appeared at the end of the room where everyone could see them, further confusing everyone, before Sirzeches pulled out a remote and turned the screens on.

What happened next was that the member of the Gremory house were treated to an image of what looked like the inside of a feudal Japanese room, but after a few seconds, a figure in a hooded jacket broke into the room, made their way over to the clearly sleeping figure in the bed, who shifted and the intruder stumbled backwards, hands clamped to their face. The hooded figure then looked around furiously before spotting something and making their way over to a shelf and picking up a pouch of some sort and looked through what was in it before putting it on the back of their hip and made their way over to the sleeping figure again, pulling out a leaf-shaped blade with a handle that had a ring on the pommel and stood over the person a few minutes, the weapon raised over their head, ready to be brought down. Yet nothing happened and the person muttered something before putting the blade away and knelt down next to the one they were about to kill and said something to them instead then stood and turned from the sleeping individual, whose arm shot out and their hand caught the would-be assassin around the wrist, making them turn and stare before they hesitantly reached down and slowly and carefully removing their hand and heading towards a window, before spreading a pair of devil wings and inspecting them and jumping out the window before the screen went dark.

Rias went a mixture of sickly green and beet red in the face as she realized what place that recording had happened in.

"Sirzeches...how did you get this footage...?" she asked, trembling.

Her elder sibling looked suddenly nervous, "Uh...well...I...wanted to make sure you were alright, Ria-tan...so I kinda-sorta...had hidden cameras installed in your room!" he said quickly.

For the amount of outrage that caused, a bomb might as well have gone off! Everyone exploded into outraged shouts of anger and disgust.

_**"YOU HAVE HIDDEN CAMERAS IN MY/HER ROOM?!"**_ Rias, Grayfia and Rias and Sirzech's parents all screamed louder than anyone else, their faces livid.

The Lucifer paled. Shit! He had a feeling in his gut that going that to keep an eye on his little sister as a way to make sure she was safe was a bad idea!

"Wait! That's not the issue here! For the first time ever in the history of the underworld, the Gremory have produced a Stray Devil!"

That caused the ones in the room to freeze, their wrath unforgotten, but not as great as a priority for the moment.

The law of how to deal with Stray Devils was Ironclad: all Stray Devils were to be killed off or put in prison immediately. It was was voted by all the Clans including the Gremory Clan, that it was mandatory that it become a law. Once you were reincarnated into a Devil, you belonged to the one who had done so to you in both body and soul. The system couldn't afford to be changed, they recruit you then you belong to them, and there was no way out. The reason for the Law of Stray Devils was that they were a danger to themselves and towards everyone and everything around them because when a Devil reincarnates, they had to be near his or her master so their power was in control or have their powers go berserk after they reincarnated. The master had to put seals on the servant for them to control their power because when someone reincarnated into a Devil, all aspects of their power increased dramatically with what they were before, and the power of the master kept the servants' power under control because of the surge that accompanied the alteration in physiology making control of that unrestrained power impossible!

_**"WHAT?!"**_

"Well who other than a member of the Gremory family would already be in here, what kind of devil isn't used to their wings showing up at will like that but the formerly-human ones that have been freshly reincarnated by the Evil Piece system, and then there's what they took from my sister's room. Rias...what were those things that were on that shelf?"

Rias bit her lip. She wanted to lie right now so badly it hurt, "...The weaponry Naruto had with him." she said, feeling hollow from betrayal. She didn't want her peerage's newest member in trouble.

Everyone in the room looked at Naruto and he gulped.

"Hey whoa...like he said, how could I be here if that were me in the video?" he said quickly.

"True...but then again...you're not what one would call 'normal', as far a the human world would go." the Crimson Satan said, somewhat coolly.

"WHAT?!" Naruto demanded, outraged.

Rias paled, recalling the fight the two had the day before. Last thing she wanted was a repeat of that with all the House of Gremory in the crossfire!

"Seeing as we're devils, we can sense demonic power as easily as feeling the breeze on our face and the level of control you had over that energy cloak when we fought before made it pretty obvious that you had done it before. What are you, a hanyō?"

Naruto lunged at Sirzeches, but Kiba, who had obviously been thinking on what Rias had told him before about why the whisker-marked blonde was so difficult and the comparison if he had been reincarnated as a Fallen Angel, grabbed him from behind. "Don't let him bait you!" the young swordsman said, slamming the other male to the ground, but as he did so, Naruto muttered an "Aw crap..." before he vanished in a plume of pea soup-thick, white smoke.

Everyone stopped and stared at that as Kiba got off the floor, looking stunned.

"Thought so..."Sirzeches said grimly, "he had only half the energy I felt from him when we fought before."

"A fake...so then...he really?" Akeno said, staring at where the counterfeit had been.

Rias, shaking all over, bolted to her feet with her eyes wide and having trouble breathing, and locked eyes on Sirzechs.

"Onii-sama...you...you're not serious! You can't...!" Rias said, the idea of losing one of her peerage nearly putting her into shock, "He doesn't know the law!"

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it." her brother said, shaking his head sadly, hating having to tell his sister this. "I can try keeping the other clans ignorant of him for a little while, a month or two at best, but that's all I can do. If you can't convince him to go back to your peerage..."

He didn't need to finish. Rias felt her blood freeze. No! She couldn't have that happen to him!

She rushed out of the room, feeling numb. Unable to come to grips with the fact that Naruto had gone Stray. Sure he hated her, but if he was serious about going Stray, why was she alive?! Stray Devils _killed _their masters!

She HAD to find Naruto and convince him to come back to her immediately or he was going to die!


	4. Chapter 4

Naruto panted as he moved through the woods surrounding the Gremory family's stupidly huge mansion, leaping through the tree branches.

While he knew he was distancing himself from the main compound, Naruto couldn't relax. He knew from clans back in Konoha that people as as Rias appeared to be usually had more than just one building in their name. Heck, the Uchiha clan, prior to the massacre, had an entire seemingly miniature village of their own in a corner of Konoha! So he was willing to bet he was still in the lands and territory that belonged to the Gremory family...which pretty much sucked, especially seeing as he had no idea just how big it was!

So he decided to just keep moving forward—literally. He'd been going straight for hours now. Looking up as he moved, he noted that the sky outside was changing rapidly from deep, velvety blue to cold, steely gray and then, slowly, to pink shot with gold. Sheesh...been moving for most of the night and he didn't even feel the slightest bit short on breath!

Ninja training and a devil's level of physical ability...he loathed the mixture. No matter how beneficial it was at the moment!

As he moved, Naruto kept trying to remember what had happened at the Valley of the End...the details just stopped before his decision to draw on more of the fox's power. Like his mind had hit a brick wall all of a sudden. Everything was blank. Dammit, what happened?! If he could figure that out, he might find a way to get back to Konoha and find a way to undo what Rias had done to him!

Far as he figured, if there was a way to wherever this was, if he could figure out how he had gotten here, he could find the way back.

**_"Nice thought...but what's that saying about this place...? "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here", right?"_**

Naruto was so shocked at the fox's voice echoing through his head that he almost tripped and crashed to the ground. What that...?! The Nine-Tails was talking in his head?! But he thought that could only happen if he entered his mindscape!

A snort rang out through his skull _**"Fool. Did you honestly think that was the case just because I'd never done communicated with you this way before?! Wait...what am I saying?! Of course you did!"**_

Naruto groaned. So the fox _'Whattda want?!' _he mentally demanded as he started moving again.

_**"Bad mood, you brat? Whatever has you so upset?! After all, you're usually so...devil–may–care!" **_the demon laughed mockingly, feeling Naruto's rage spike at the comment, then it yowled as the Evil Pieces suddenly tore even grater amounts of energy from it, giving Naruto a satisfying twinge of dark amusement. _**"Shit that stings...Seriously though, devil or not now, you need to rest up. Your body'll fail on you if you don't get some rest and some food."**_

Naruto snarled _'I'll push this thing as much as I need to, this ISN'T my body! I was born as a human!'_

_**"So you reject everything you are now just because of what wasn't anyone else's fault but the Uchiha's? Face it, as angry as you are at Gremory and your situation, if it weren't for the Uchiha, NONE of this would be happening now, and we both know it! His choice blew up in your face, now you just lash out at everyone because you can't punish him?"**_

Naruto scowled _'I don't need or want to hear this from you! After all, if it weren't for YOU, I wouldn't have had the kind of life I have where I was labeled a devil or unholy monster in the first place!'_

**_"Heh...True. Then again...my assault on your village wasn't exactly voluntary to begin with."_**

This time, Naruto really DID fall to the ground, He lifted his head and spat out a clog of grass out of his mouth. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" he demanded, shouting his question out loud, he was so stunned.

Naruto could feel the fox grinning wickedly, _**"Got your attention, did I? Well, it's a long story. So if you don't want to miss any of the details, I suggest you stop worrying about where you're going and actually listen."**_

Naruto grit his teeth. Hating that this wasn't something that was being held over his head. _'How do I know what you'll be saying is actually the truth?!'_

_**"You won't."**_ the demon admitted bluntly._** "But at least I can give you the full story. And I'm the only living individual who can."**_

_'So what do you have to say then?' _ the boy demanded.

Snickering, the tailed beast started the story of the attack on the village and how it was caused by a masked man with the Sharingan...

* * *

There were things that a person could, and could not, accept.

Killing her former master...acceptable.

Being labeled an SS-Class Stray Devil and one of the Underworld's most wanted criminals...acceptable.

Being forced to join up with the Khaos Brigade because of said criminal label...acceptable.

The Nekomata species on the brink of extinction...not acceptable.

Being separated from Shirone...not acceptable...at all!

Allowing former master to drain her little sister's life force to increase his own powers...HELL NO!

Such were the thoughts of Kuroka the Nekoshou as she made her way to where she usually went when she was off by herself. She needed to see if her sister was all right. Sure her spying was annoying, but it was necessary. It wasn't like she could just walk up to her sister and ask how she was, though she wished it were that simple.

Still...she was a master of Senjutsu and Youjutsu, that made things easier as far as the sneaking and the watching went. But she wanted more than that. She wanted her Shirone and her to be a family again!

Kuroka loved her little sister dearly, enough to accept all the bad that came with things as long as her sister was safe and happy. Though she hated how she had trouble showing it at times, so to make up for her awkwardness, she settled for teasing her when she couldn't find how else to get that point across.

What made it especially bad was that Shirone was all she had after the deaths of their parents.

Sighing the female neko recalled how she and her sister were taken in by a Devil after the loss of their mother and father, and how she herself had been reincarnated as the Devil's Bishop using two Evil Pieces. While serving her master, she became extremely talented in the arts of Senjutsu and Youjutsu, and her magical power as a Bishop became so great that she surpassed her own master in terms of magical power alone. It made her feel so proud. Best of all was that she could use her powers to keep her sister safe for any and all harm. That was the best part. Then it all came crashing down when she later became a Stray Devil after she killed her master, with everyone assuming that she was drunk with her own powers, but the real reason was to protect her sister from her master, and she became one of the Underworld's most wanted criminals, ranking at SS-Class.

When she had heard that following the failed manhunt that came after that incident, Shirone had been sentenced to death by the Devils who had the hopes of preventing another incident like Kuroka's from happening, (which was as unjust as it was utterly ridiculous!) she was going to offer her head in place of her sister's. After all, whatever her faults or sins, she wanted nothing to happen to her younger sister and wanted to protect her from anything, everything, anyone and everybody that would hurt her, even though she knew the paranoid fools would most likely go back on that kind of bargain if she did, still thinking that killing her innocent sister was for the best of all devil-kind. People were like that; human, devil, angel, or fallen angel, it didn't matter who or what they were: Once they made their minds up about something, it was almost impossible to get them to change.

Though thankfully...mercifully...Sirzechs Lucifer himself, beautiful bastard of a saint that he was, had protected Shirone...bless him for that!...and left her under his sister Rias' care. And if there was one thing the Gremory was know for, it was caring too much about anyone and everyone that was made part of their family, either by affiliation via reincarnation into peerage or coming into it by birth, it was all the same to them! Bless them! One and all! Kuroka adored the Gremory for looking out for her little sister that, and she was grateful beyond any form of expression to them for it. Since then, she had been trying to find a way to make it up to them. Maybe serving as a spy and discretely passing on information about the Khaos Brigade, the group created by Ophis, the Dragon God of Infinity, with the sole purpose of removing the Great Red, the most powerful Dragon in existence known as the True Dragon, out of the Dimensional Gap, and consisted of multiple races: Devils, Fallen Angels, Humans who were descendants of legendary/mythological heroes, and a even few unfallen Angels, without either side knowing? The idea had merit, especially seeing as the Old Satan Faction was the largest faction of the Khaos Brigade. But it didn't seem like nearly enough to say just how much Kuroka felt she owed Sirzechs and his family for being there for her sister when she couldn't.

She wanted there to be...more. But what in the heck could she do to fully express how much she felt indebted toward them? This bothered her immensely, she wanted to pay them back, but what seemed to be a big enough way of doing so?

Suddenly, she froze, "Damnit!" she hissed, then transformed into a black house cat and quickly climbed up a tree. Sure enough, two of her sister's fellow peerage-members, the Hunter of Heaven's Cast-Outs, Yuuto Kiba, and the Priestess of Thunder, Akeno Himejima, appeared under the tree she was in.

"Find that vagabond?!" Akeno said, to which their unbeknownst observer paled under her fur, thinking she was in trouble.

"Damn kid...why'd he ditch Rias?!" Kiba spat, looking furious.

HUH?!

Well now...looked like the unthinkable had happened: Gremory had a _STRAY_! How interesting! What was that saying? Ask and ye shall receive?!

Kuroka leaned forward in the tree branch, hungry for information.

"Damn that whisker-faced, red-and-black-eyed, blond little yutz! I get that he hated being reincarnated into a devil, but going Stray?!" Kiba snapped, twisting his hands in a violent jerk, obviously envisioning the runaway's head between them.

"At least Rias is still alive, though why he didn't kill her, I don't know. Not that I'm ever going to complain he didn't..." Akeno said, then the two made their way off somewhere else, leaving their unknown observer to ponder what she had hard.

So...a reluctant peerage member, huh? One that Rias wanted protected? Kuroka grinned as she turned into her humanoid form again...oh, this was perfect! Now she could repay the Red Tit Empress for looking out for her sister by keeping an eye on whoever the 'yutz' Kiba had mentioned was! And if she could convince this guy to go back to Rias, he could help keep an eye on Shirone for her!

This was wonderful! She felt like doing a jig and whooping, but there'd be time for that later! She had work to do! Shifting back into her Nekomata form, the two-bishop Evil Piece-carrier quickly set about casting a detection area. As she finished her casting, a hexagonal-shaped detection map with a glowing helix appeared where the one she was looking for materialized in front of her. The stronger this guy was, the better reaction it would get in tracing him.

But as she watched, Kuroka had to shield her face with her arm as the glow blinded her and the tracer shattered like glass before the shards of energy dissipated.

Holy...! Sheesh! Just how much power did this runaway have at their disposal anyway?! Kuroka had to wince at the thought, seeing as how stray devils were essentially living time bombs, one with this much power was a very bad thing!

Well, at least they were staying on one spot from what her tracker had shown her. Good news there. Transforming back into the form of a normal cat, she started heading to the location indicated by her map prior to it's breaking. Upon getting there, she stopped and saw that there was a young man in a hooded jacket who seemed to be trying to rush up the side of a tree for some reason, before gravity yanked him back down and he fell onto his head. He groaned as he twisted so that he could sit up, rubbing his head, pushing his hood down and exposing spiky blond hair.

Well now...so this was Rias' whisker-faced, Red-and-black-eyed, blond little yutz? He certainly fit the bill, trying to run up a tree like that. Yep, this was who she was looking for!

"Damnit...chakra control is still off!" he grumbled.

Kuroka perked at that. Chakra?! He was a chakra-user?! This just got even more interesting to her!

She wondered if he was a senjutsu practitioner himself.

The biggest difference the underworld's senjutsu had between magic and sorcery was that senjutsu stressed the importance of chakra, the aura that was the great original power that flowed into one's spirit, in other words, one's life-force, and turned it into a constant current. It was a power that was both similar yet different from the magic of Devils and the light power of Angels. While it's direct destructive power couldn't match that of magic or the power of light, but Senjutsu could make use of the unknown power hidden within plants, animals, and people. For example, if one learned Senjutsu, it was said that they could excel at reading the flow of someone's spirit, of their aura, and that they could also grasp the movements of a faraway target to a certain degree. One weakness of Senjutsu was that while it could read and handle spirit energy, it also drew in the malice and ill-will that floated off every living being in the world into the user. This meant that absorbing too much of that malice would result in one becoming drunk with power.

Because of that aspect of it, Kuroka had gained her negative reputation, the surviving members of her former master's peerage that saw that Kuroka had used chakra and senjutsu to kill him spread the rumors that it had been because of her using chakra and senjutsu to have Kuroka branded as a criminal and seen as crazy. Come to think of it...she often wondered if there were other forms of Senjutsu to master. World was a big place, after all, there couldn't be just one. As for Youjutsu, well, simply put, that was the form of demon art spellcraft that was mainly unique to the Youkai-classification of beings in the underworld.

She turned her muzzle upwards in a too-human smile. Time to make introductions...

Naruto continued to grumble to himself, hating his situation. If any of Naruto's friends were to see him now, they would most likely have scolded him. But to be honest, he wouldn't really have given a damn about any of that at the moment. Everything he'd recently been through and learned just kept spinning in his head and the young man desperately needed an outlet for his frustrations, so he had thrown himself into training to re-adapt to his new chakra control. Anything, just so long as it let him take his mind off everything he was going through!

And the eyes...now that he knew the "full" story from the fox, he HATED the eyes! So what if the transplanted Sharingan gave him the ability to observe and differentiate the flow of energy coming off others, predict and mimic movements and techniques, and see through illusions, he hated the eyes! Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to go around in Hell, of all places, and stumble around because he was blind, so he couldn't slash and gouge them out.

Sure the fox could by lying, but how much could he say was false? He had just been born when that all happened!

He was caught by surprise when he suddenly felt a warm, heavy weight settle into his lap, and he looked down to see a black cat curled up on his legs. Naruto was shocked to find an animal so ordinary in the world of demons, but shook his head. At least this was normal. He wondered about how that could be.

While he didn't much like cats seeing as he'd be mauled and slashed up pretty bad a a few, such as Tora, the cat owned by Madam Shijimi, the wife of the Fire Daimyō, this one was just curled up in his lap, and rubbed up against him affectionately. Naruto sighed, feeling grateful for the small comfort, and raised a hand to pet the cat, but then thought better of it seeing as he didn't like the idea of those claws the animal had, and (feeling silly) asked the cat "May I?"

The cat flicked it's tail, but otherwise ignored him.

Hoping he wasn't doing the wrong thing and upsetting the animal, the blond ninja-turned-devil tentatively started rubbing the feline's neck, resulting in a loud, throbbing purr vibrated up through his legs as the cat showed it's enjoyment over the action. It made him smile.

Suddenly, the cat started glowing and smoke shot up from it's paws and covered it. Yet as Naruto could tell due to what was happening in his lap, the feline's body grew and changed, it's limbs lengthened and changed to a human's, the fur on top on the cat's head lengthened and became loose as it flowed down like an ebony waterfal as the fur on the rest of it's body turned loose and changed into a revealing kimono robe.

Where the cat had been, Naruto suddenly found himself nose-to nose with a young woman with a voluptuous figure, long black hair with split bangs and hazel eyes with cat-like pupils, a pair of black cat ears and two black tails. Her attire consisted of a black kimono, a yellow obi, a set of golden beads, and an ornately detailed headband. The kimono featured a red interior and it was open at her shoulders, giving view to her large breasts, which had plenty of size. She also had a pair of cat ears on her head and two black cat tails.

She smiled teasingly, her eyes seemed to glint with playful wickedness, as though they were just _itching_ to cause trouble. She draped her arms around his neck, her legs locked together after going around his waist, and both tails coiled themselves around one of his legs each.

"Hiya, little runaway! Nya~!" the woman said coyly. The cat-woman smirked, enjoying the flustered blush on his face and the feel of his muscles pressing against her generous assets. _'Hmm...nice hard abs, bit malnourished, but all in all...not bad.'_ she thought.

Naruto gagged on his spit before whipping out a kunai and swiped at the nekomata, but in less than time than it took to blink, the woman had disentangled herself from him and leapt back and away, landing in a branch of the tree Naruto had been trying to use to train with.

He turned and made to bolt, but the feline female's voice caught in his ears.

"Don't bother trying to run! As much as I enjoy a good chase, with chakra-levels as high as yours, finding you with senjutsu is way too simple."

Naruto froze at that and turned to look up at her.

"Wha...what did you just say?!" he demanded, eyes wide. She knew about chakra?! And "Sage Arts"? He'd never heard of that before!

The catgirl smirked and lept down from the tree, landing perfectly on her feet. "Got your attention, huh? Nya~!" she said.

"Could you PLEASE drop the verbal tic?! It makes trying to talk to you really annoying!" Naruto said, getting that he had a verbal tic himself so that he had no real room to talk, but resolved to learning to drop it after this.

"Well, if you're gonna be that way, I just guess I'll have to reconsider my offer to teach you Senjutsu and Youjutsu then..." she said as she turned and started to walk away.

"W-Wait!"

"Hmm?" Kuroka stopped and opened an eye, not bothering to turn around of even look over her shoulder. A smile danced on her lips...how typical, a devil who was suddenly interested as soon as they learned there was something in it for them. Boring!

"This senjutsu stuff...can you travail dimensions with it?!" the blond asked.

Odd question, but she decided to answer him. "Why yes...I'm capable of performing space-time manipulation with my arts." she said, a slight fib, seeing as she was only manipulate space at this point. Still, if he was asking about going to different realities, she knew that was all he cared about space manipulation.

Naruto's breath picked up and his heartbeat pounded in his throat like a jackhammer. Jutsu that could allow him to get back to Konoha? Was she serious?!

"This Sage art stuff...you can use it to sense chakra-users?!" he asked, hunger in his tone.

"Duh! How'd you think I found you? Nya! But I'm curious...how much do you know about chakra?"

In response, Naruto clapped his hands together in the ram hand sign and flared his chakra for all he was worth, getting the nekoshou-turned-devil to whip around and stare at him in shock.

The blond shrugged, seeing he had her attention. "Would show you a few chakra techniques I know, but my problem is that I have so much chakra I keep overloading the small-scale jutsu I try using, no matter how hard I work on chakra control, I can never work a small enough flow. It's sort of like trying to fill a shot glass using a fire hose. Since I became a..." he stopped and made a face, "a you-know-what, this body can handle it better. Threw my control off."

Kuroka nodded, "Highly overdeveloped chakra system and your energy was denser. After you were changed, your mental and physical energies were properly proportioned evenly. Unusual problem."

Canceling the flair of his energy, Naruto scowled "Can you help me or not?!" he demanded.

"Impertinent one, aren't you? Maybe I'll reconsider choosing to become your sensei in Senjutsu and Youjutsu if you're gonna be like that, Nya~!"

Naruto choked at that. His attitude could end up costing him his way home! "No! Wait, please! I'm sorry! It's just I've been through a lot recently way too fast!" he pleaded.

Hmm..."How so?" the black cat asked.

Naruto sighed at being allowed to at least explain himself, and so he told her all about his past growing up a pariah, learning the truth about why that was during the incident with Iruka, Mizuki, and the Forbidden Scroll, being assigned to Team 7 and their missions together, the Sauna-Oto Invasion and his battle with Gaara and Shukaku, the funeral of Hiruzen Sarutobi, the search for Tsunade, and Sasuke's bitterness and attempt to defect and the resulting mission to get him back as well as its consequences. "...So after I end up fighting for my life, I _literally_ wake up to being told I'm a devil now all because of someone _else's_ bad choices! Managed to get out of that Gremory place, but now I have no idea where to go to get back home, and I learned that the teme's family are the ones who ruined my life!"

Sheesh...Kuroka had to admit if that were this guy's life story, no wonder he was ticked off about being made a devil, it was practically a slap in the face! Having things blow up in your face because you wanted to look out for the people you cared about...she knew THAT feeling all too well.

An image of her imoto, little Shirone-chan, and the ways someone with this much power could easily keep her safe. That decided it. Besides, as she noted about him before, seeing as how stray devils were essentially living time bombs, one with this much power was a very bad thing. She couldn't just let him run wild or he'd eventually become a threat to her imoto's wellbeing.

Kuroka sighed. Her mind quickly piecing together a plan, one that was far from foolproof, but at least seemed feasible enough. As she hammered out the details of what she'd need to do, she felt she could make it work. Would be tricky, but if she were careful about it, it could work.

She turned around, looking at him for a second before she smirked. "Name's Kuroka. Better attach a "-sensei" honorific to that name kiddo."

Naruto froze, then got down on all fours, bowing deeply his head pressing to the ground. "Yes, Kuroka-sensei! Name's Naruto!"

Kuroka blinked, dumbfounded, then broke out cackling. His name was "fishcake"?! That was rich! Hilarious! Not to mention it made her hungry...the nekoshou shook her head, amused.

"Alrighty then, Fishcake-chan! Let's get to work on your instruction!, Nya!" Kuroka told him, beaming.

"WHAT'D YOU CALL ME?!" Naruto shouted, bolting to his feet, all reverence and respect

"Gon~na have to grad~u~ate if you wan~na have me use your na~ame! Nya~!" Kuroka sang annoyingly. "Call it incentive, kiddo!"

Naruto groaned, he could tell from his newest "sensei's" expression that in his eagerness for a way back to Konoha, he had just damned himself to enduring more than he might be able to chew!

* * *

Rias paced her room (having had to spend the day hunting and removing those damned cameras his brother had placed in her room, both to give her peace of mind as well as keep herself too busy to think about recent events) worried out of her mind. None of her peerage members had found a trail leading to the wayward blond. They'd been searching all day and it was dusk now.

"Konnichiwa, Swi-chan!" a voice suddenly said, breaking her from her thoughts and Rias whipped around and her eyes widened at who was suddenly in her room with her.

"YOU!" the redhead said, blave energy with a red outline enveloping her hands.

"Nya, Nya, Nya...cool it, wouldya? This is just a projection. I'm not really here!" Kuroka complained.

Rias narrowed her blue-green eyes as they started glowing red, even as she dissipated the Power of Destruction she was about hurl at the double S-class criminal. "What do you want?!"

The image shrugged and stretched as if getting out of bed, not at all concerned with the Gremory's rising anger, "Well, I was thinking we could cut a deal..."

"Absolutely not!" Rias spat, glaring.

"Oh? Seems rather hasty to refuse out of hand like that." Kuroka's projected self said.

"Considering what you did, is that really a surprise?! Besides, we're devils! We know all the risks that come with making a deal!" Rias said.

At that, Kuroka outright scowled. "That so, you bitch?!" she spat, "Tell me this then Gremory: If the the ones you care about and mean everything to you are at risk and the ONLY way to protect them is to do something unforgivable and horrible, would you?! Or is the Gremory Family's reputation of being so caring just a bunch of utter bullshit!?"

Rias tensed, losing her glare as her eyes widened with sheer shock as they faded back to their normal color. "What?!" then she seemed to piece it together. "Koneko...!? You...?!"

Kuroka nodded, dropping her scowl as well, "Renamed her after all, eh? And quick on the uptake, I see. Yes, I did it for her." she said wistfully.

"Wha-wha-wha...how could...? I mean, what...? Then why didn't...?" Rias sputtered.

The two-tailed catwoman shrugged. "Who would've believed me? But that's not the issue here."

"But if there's a way to clear your name...!"

Kuroka laughed, but she blinked as her eyes started to moisten, "I could be free to join the House of Gremory and be with my sister again? I won't lie, I love that idea. But now's not the time. Y'see...I've got a proposition for you."

Rias frowned, still shocked. She turned away from the hologram and punched the nearest wall. Her mind buzzing with thoughts on what she had just learned. "So what do you want?" she asked, distracted.

"Naruto Uzumaki."

At the name, she spun around, wide-eyed and even more shocked than she was before. Ok...NOW Rias was listening!

"What?! You...you know him?! What did you...?!"

Koneko's sister shrugged, suddenly all business, "Took him on as my pupil in Senjutsu and Youjutsu. Don't worry, won't tell anybody. Look, Gremory, kid's got issues with reincarnation as a devil. That's obvious. And with how much power in him he hasn't tapped into that he has already, it'll be bad if his power grows too strong for him to control. He needs your help with that. What I'm willing to offer is that I'll work him to exhaustion with Senjutsu and Youjutsu lessons, then when he's out like a light, I teleport you to where he is and you drain the excess power from him. On top of keeping an eye on him and helping train him, I'll make sure he learns the underworld's laws. And when you show up, even provide you with information on the Khaos Brigade: members, goals, locations...whatever I can get, so you can give it all to your brother and the rest of the Four Great Satans, and I'll even try finding out about where your newest member is from you you can head there and find out about him that way, shead some light on why he's the way he is towards you and maybe find a way to convince him to go back to your group, all I ask in return is that you continue to do what you have been doing and keep my imoto...Shirone-chan, Koneko-chan...whatever she wants to be called...safe and happy. Do we have a deal?"

Rias' mind whirled. Someone that was labeled a SS-class stray for protecting her family was willing to make a deal like this?!

"How do I know I can trust a member of the Khaos Brigade?" she asked.

Kuroka smirked, "So...it's not my actions, but my affiliation that you can't stand now, eh? Nya. Well to put it bluntly...I'll be acting independently from them. I owe your family for rescuing my imoto anyways, so what do you have to lose?"

Rias gulped. This all seemed too good to be true, yet if she could convince her brother that _Naruto_ was the one providing the information...she could keep him safe for a while, at least. If he was doing something so beneficial to the Four Satans, who could label him an official, kill-on-sight stray?

"All right. You've got a deal." Rias said with a sense of resignation.


	5. Chapter 5

**_A/U: _****_I've noticed that in general the people that review in the Naruto/HS DxD section are quite fanatic and not at all polite. I mean, any story that has Naruto paired with Rias is automatically flamed, any story tha thas Naruto being part of a peerage is flamed as well. The point is, if you can't stand the possibility of Naruto being on a peerage than what the hell are you even doing reading a crossover between Naruto and Highschool DxD?_**

**_People are just so intolerant and like to create internal rules that they think that other people should follow from out of nowhere. _**

**_ I've decided to ignore the reviews saying things like "Turn him into a real stray", _****_"change the title!" or "the title is misleading". _**

**_Really, _****_what are the rules for him to be considered a _****_"REAL" Stray?_**

**_ A Stray is a devil that escaped his master or made some crime against him/her, Naruto did that when he left Rias, didn't he? Therefore he is a stray, the fact that he didn't kill Rias and may HAVE to come back to her in the future doesn't change the fact that for now he is a stray. The fact that Itachi was one of the greatest allies of Konoha didn't change his status as missing-nin up for any bounty hunter to try and hunt him did it? So why would Naruto having some connecting with Rias still suddenly spoil the story? _**

**_And where did either myself or even the CREATORS OF HIGHSXHOOL DXD ever said to anyone that by becoming a Stray, Naruto would become a terrorist hellbent on killing everyone and turn into and revenge-driven emo? The character name is Naruto isn't it? I don't remember saying that the story is about Sasuke, (heck I KILLED him in chapter one!) so why are people expecting Naruto to start acting like Sasuke from out of nowhere? If I do what people want and make Naruto act like Sasuke, then they will start complaining to me that Naruto is OOC and that I'm writing a blond Uchiha (I've seen this argument used for other stories before, I think it can be used to a certain degree but it would be major hypocrisy complaining about it after you asked the author to do things this way)._**

****_Also, people seem to forget that as a new devil, Naruto normally can't stay away from his master since they're the one that regulates his energy and that without the contact, he could end up like those grotesque stray devils that Rias' group group hunted in the beginning of the DxD story in cannon. And Kuroka may try to help him learn to control his energies, but at the end of the day he has an enormous amount and this would be too big of a risk. It's more than obvious for anyone with more than two brain cells that I would have to find a way to help him control his energies. I Mean I COULD could try some bulshit like "Ophis will do!" like a lot of stories that simply use Ophis and Great Red as hacks and Deus Ex Machina solutions to solve problems in the plot that they don't want to think about but I'm willing to actually think of a solution instead of instantly jumping to the most obvious cliche!_****

****_So do me a favor...if you want to hate me for NOT doing the _********_cliches like that just to please you, would you kindly leave the story and not waste time flaming me? _****

* * *

Naruto panted. His chakra network ached, sending throbbing protests into his nervous system through the connection to his cells the energy had. This youjustsu stuff was pretty tricky for him to pin down, but the regiment was first that he'd figure out youjustsu, then senjutsu.

It had been a week since he'd started his studies under this Nekomata-turned-devil who was a surprisingly strict teacher.

As that thought crossed his mind, he felt his mind spin like a high-speed pinwheel. Sure, telling someone he had just met about the fox was pretty reckless, but with everything he'd found out from the fox about how from day one, his chance at a normal life had been sacrificed for the sake of the Uchiha Clan's delusions and obsession with hate, and the way the Uchiha had just stood back and watched as he had been the scapegoat for their family's wrong-doings...how their hubris mattered THAT much to them...well, that added onto his current turmoil over being turned into a devil and he'd needed to vent. Anyway it wasn't like he could be called crazy for what he had shared. He had told a two-tailed cat-woman that was turned into a devil about the Kyubbi. No way would Kuroka find the demon inside him strange or frightening. Why would it be an odd topic to talk about a demon when you're in the Underworld?

Besides, Naruto was already in a strange situation, he needed Kuroka's help.

Much to his annoyance, Naruto had to deal with how his tease-happy new sensei enjoyed playing a song she'd heard once in the human world from a group called "Ylvis" that was titled "The Fox". She used her youjustsu seal him in a barrier, then made the air molecules in it vibrate to produce the music so he couldn't get away from it. And he had to endure it repeating endlessly unless he used his own lessons on youjutsu to either make a hole in the barrier and escape that way, or to stop the music by applying his youjutsu to halt the vibrations in the air.

He HATED the lesson!

...Which he was being made to go through right now!

Dog goes woof, cat goes meow.

Bird goes tweet, and mouse goes squeak.

Cow goes moo. Frog goes croak, and the elephant goes toot.

Ducks say quack and fish go blub, and the seal goes OW OW OW.

But there's one sound that no one knows...

WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?

Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

WHAT THE FOX SAY?

Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!

Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!

Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!

WHAT THE FOX SAY?

Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!

Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!

Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!

WHAT THE FOX SAY?

Joff-tchoff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!

Joff-tchoff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!

Joff-tchoff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!

WHAT THE FOX SAY?

Big blue eyes, pointy nose, chasing mice, and digging holes.

Tiny paws, up the hill, suddenly you're standing still.

Your fur is red, so beautiful, like an angel in disguise.

But if you meet a friendly horse, will you communicate by mo-o-o-o-orse, mo-o-o-o-orse, mo-o-o-o-orse?

How will you speak to that h-o-o-orse, h-o-o-orse, h-o-o-orse?

WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?!

Jacha-chacha-chacha-chow!

Jacha-chacha-chacha-chow!

Jacha-chacha-chacha-chow!

WHAT THE FOX SAY?

Fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!

Fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!

Fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!

WHAT THE FOX SAY?

A-hee-ahee ha-hee!

A-hee-ahee ha-hee!

A-hee-ahee ha-hee!

WHAT THE FOX SAY?

A-oo-oo-oo-ooo!

Woo-oo-oo-ooo!

WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?!

The secret of the fox, ancient mystery.

Somewhere deep in the woods, I know you're hiding.

What is your sound? Will we ever know?

Will always be a mystery what do you say?

You're my guardian angel hiding in the woods.

What is your sound? (A-bubu-duh-bubu-dwee-dum a-bubu-duh-bubu-dwee-dum)

Will we ever know? (A-bubu-duh-bubu-dwee-dum)

I want to, I want to, I want to know! (A-bubu-duh-bubu-dwee-dum)

(Bay-buh-day bum-bum bay-dum)

The phase about skinning a cat was REALLY tempting for him as the song about foxes pounded in his ears while his black cat teacher smirked at him from outside the barrier. She'd figured out quickly that he was a kinesthetic learner, the kind that needed to learn through trial and error, and through hands-on training. A long explanation would only confuse and bore him, making learning impossible. So she gave him hands-on lessons and reasons to want to get the lessons right, but for someone who had a fox demon wreck their life the moment it started, this was even less pleasant than having teeth drilled!

It made him have very grim fantasies about hogtying her with her own tails and leaving her dangling over a bonfire.

He never told his sensei that of course, but he could tell she was aware of the fact that he hated the damn song since he'd first heard it! That was the point. He had to _make_ it stop using what she was teaching him.

"Giving up?" Kuroka said from outside.

"Screw you! I'm not quitting!" Naruto snapped back, panting. There was no guarantee she'd stop if he called it quits, and giving up was never his style anyways. Still...for all his tough talk, he was horrible at channeling demonic power!

He closed his eyes and tried to block out the song, and gather his energy. Trouble was, he had a hard time telling _his_ demonic aura from the _fox's _now that he was a devil...ugh...!

He'd been told by his teacher that devils were creatures of desire. Devils have desires, grant desires, get desires, and hope for desires without obligation. Even though he wad a devil now, his will to desire hadn't been lost. The stronger his desire, the stronger his power would respond to his will.

Naruto's sole desire: He wanted to be human again! He hated that he was a devil!

As the idea filled him with disgust and how he wanted his humanity back, he didn't notice the aura of energy surrounding him or that it grew in intensity until it started to hurt.

As he cried out, demonic energy surged through him and actually manifested itself outside of his body, it slammed into the barrier and it exploded with the force of an atomic bomb and it shattered. Through the smoke of the explosion, Kuroka thought she saw something that looked like a long, red, two-tailed coat. that had zippers on the sleeves and a buckle around the waist, with black cuffs, and had a pronounced buckled collar and a black chest plate of sorts resembling a vampire hunter's coat with western and Italian accents, though the right sleeve was missing.

Then it faded in a single second later before she could determine if that was what she had actually seen and the smoke dissipated to show Naruto passed out, stone cold.

* * *

The fox winced as one of the Evil Pieces started glowing, the one that had been inert up until now: The mutated bishop.

If the PAWNS were painful, the demon didn't want to think what that higher-ranked Evil Piece would do to him!

Yet the pain never came, the fox opened one eye as the ground of Naruto's mindscape trembled and several red torii gates burst from the ground, all in a long row. Once they all had, the quake stopped.

As the fox watched, someone walked through them towards the cave that now made up the seal and stopped in front of it — A young-looking man that had short, spiky brown hair — two locks of which were wrapped in bandages framing either side of his stern-looking face. He wore what seemed to be a blank forehead protector and bandages around his forehead. He wore a light-colored kimono which was adorned with magatama around the collar. The kimono was held closed by a dark-colored sash. Underneath all of this he wore a black full-body suit.

"Hello, Kurama-ototo. Been a long time." he said with a smirk.

The fox's eyes widened, utterly shocked.

**"YOU...!?"**

* * *

Kuroka knelt down by her student, frowning.

"What was that?" she muttered. Then seeing how Naruto was unconscious, she sighed and held up a summoning flier with the Gremory crest on it. "Yo, Red...he's out of it for now."

With that, she tossed the slip onto the ground and the red magic circle that composed the summoning array appeared on the ground and in moments, Rias Gremory stood in the center of it and it faded away. The redhead immediately went over to the blond boy, held him against her and siphoned off the excess demonic power that had been building up in him into her own body.

Nodding at that, Kuroka pulled an envelope out of her kimono and handed it to the redhead.

"You're brother sent hunters?" the cat asked.

Rias shook her head "No, he thinks Naruto's the one gathering his information. Can't send hunters after him without cutting off something valuable. Politically, it's tied my brother's hands, getting these details on the Khaos Brigade."

"It's obvious he hates you, and yet you go through all this trouble for his sake." Kuroka chin-pointed to Naruto and shook her head. "He seems pretty wrapped up in feeling bitter. What'd you do to him?"

Rias sighed, "He was unconscious,, injured and dying when I came across him. Only way to save him was to make him one of my peerage. He...didn't take his new-found devilhood all that well." she said, thinking of how Naruto had tried to slit his own throat.

Kuroka raised a brow. "Interesting. I'll see if I can talk to him about that when he's up. Anyways...you better go, kid never stays down long, and he's a bit of a rough sleeper, he uses his weapons and combat techniques when he's out."

Rias nodded, then spared one last pained look at the out-cold blond before Kuroka caught her attention again.

"Oh, and Red...I'm also trying to pinpoint his reality, any volunteers to head to his dimension and find out what's-what are gonna be welcome. Figure that showing him that it's not always like it is in the books would help, maybe find something that could help him. He keeps going on how he no longer has a place to return to now that he's a reincarnated devil. Might help change his mind about that. I'll let you know when it's ready."

Rias stared, then nodded and smiled before vanishing in a magic array, feeling a bit more upbeat. If she could help him like that, then he might accept being part of her family.

More importantly, she was out to mend things with her reluctant peerage member. He was her responsibility, as was this mess he was in. She hadn't meant any harm by changing him into a Reincarnated Devil, after all, was it wrong to do something to save a person's life rather than just standing by and watching, even if you only had a single option to do so? Still...she realized that, unlike with her other members, she hadn't asked—she'd just taken. Even if there was no point in asking him if he had wanted it or not, the fact was that she'd made Naruto into a devil without his consent.

While she didn't know what was wrong or why he opposed his state as a devil so strongly, seeing as she barely knew him as it was and he was so tight-lipped about his past, she owed him to try and help after how her well-intended impetuousness had apparently cost him everything. The fact that she was too abrupt with informing him that he had been changed into a devil couldn't have helped. Looking back on how she had broke the news to him, she realized, with distaste, that she had told him while under the assumption he'd simply accept that life as a devil was better than no life at all.

Rias wanted to fix things as much as she could with Naruto, make things, if not right, than at least better. It was her responsibility and she refused to turn away from it.

No sooner had she vanished and the glow from her transportation magic faded than Naruto groaned as he awoke. Dammit! What the hell was this pain?! He couldn't move, couldn't think...why did he hurt so damn bad?! It wasn't chakra exhaustion or even the burning strain that he'd felt in his Rasengan training, it was worse...way worse! He couldn't even describe it at the moment.

"Wow...you really have hardly any control at all over your own power, eh? Then again, you did say that being made a Devil had thrown your control out the window. Nya." Kuroka said.

Naruto looked to see his sensei looking down at him with interest.

"Dammit...what the hell happened?" he groaned.

"That's what I wanna know. I told you to focus on the strongest desire you have, what was it?"

Naruto looked up at the sky, "...I just want to be human again, that's all. I don't care what I have to do, I can't stand being a demonic entity." he sighed.

Kuroka narrowed her eyes. Well, that was an issue. His demonic aura was trying to react accordingly to his strongest desire. But that caused his aura as a devil to utterly reject itself, weakening it and trying to force it into a human's energy. "Well...I guess we could reverse the order of your studies. I hoped to have you get used to controlling your demonic energies through learning youjustsu, but I guess we'll need to focus on chakra. But we'll HAVE to sort out these issues and psychological scars those idiots who hated you for saving their lives just by being born in the first place left you with. Only way to make this training work."

Naruto grunted. That was not going to be pleasant. Seeing as how the reason why Gaara used to be had terrified him because, if it weren't for Iruka, he was how Naruto would have turned out, just as much of a sociopath. The fact that the people around him hated him so much that, in order to justify how they treated him with such loathing that they wanted to turn him into a self-fulfilling prophecy as far as him being a deranged psychotic that felt that all life was meaningless and that nothing nor anyone matters, and saw killing as the sole point to existence hadn't helped when he'd realized that about his sand-using, enemy-turned-friend.

So yeah...dealing with those issues head-on wasn't something he'd be looking forward to in the slightest.

Kuroka sighed. This guy seemed to love making things difficult. Not that she could blame Naruto, the idea of coming to grips with how he was now a demonic being when his past tormentors tried to beat the idea he was something unholy back when he was just a little kid and fully human into him wouldn't sound that great to HER either if she were in his position with this. But unless he let go of his issues, he wouldn't last too long.

He needed this to work. But the question was how to do that without everything blowing up in her face or his? Damn it all! Why couldn't this be simple?

"Naruto, can I ask you something?" the feline female asked.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "What is it?" he asked.

"About that Tengu-teme, what was he like? Other than broody and a slave to his past, I mean. You said he was practically deified by the people where you're from, but what made him so important?"

Naruto smirked. He loved hearing that...Tengu-bastard. That was Kuroka's nickname for his ex-teammate. According to Kuroka, among yokai, the tengu were often conceived of as the arrogant, and as a result the creatures have become strongly associated with vanity and pride. There was even an expression: _tengu ni naru._ Which literally meant, "becoming a tengu", that was used to describe a conceited person. That was very fitting way to describe Sasuke, especially given how the second state of the Ten no Juin made Sasuke seem to become some sort of half-tengu creature.

"His family was butchered and he was the only survivor, because of that, he was always seen as the tragic figure. Him being a prodigy always caused him to be seen as a genius and the best of the best as well."

"Sound's like a charming guy... psychotic, egocentric, obsessed with killing, thinks he's God, revenge-obsessed, and overly serious to top it all off. I pity seeing how he tried showing a girl a good time...unless he played for the same team."

Naruto snorted. He liked hearing that.

"Well...which way he swung, I don't know. As for showing a good time, there was this one thing he did, but you're not gonna like it: He chased down and beat the crap out of cats to force them to add to this encyclopedia of cat paw prints he had. It was his idea of a game." Naruto shrugged.

"...Paw...pri..." the neko said faintly, her face turning red, "I'M GONNA KILL HIM! THE FILTHY HENTAI!"

Naruto sneered and snickered sourly at his mentor's utterly scandalized proclamation, remembering what that one talking ninja cat, Hina said that for a cat, getting your paw print taken was as embarrassing as a human being photographed naked.

"Too late!"

"Eh?! What do you mean by that?!" Kuroka demanded.

Using his index and ring finger on one hand, the blond devil pointed to his black-and-red, tomoe-marked eyes. "Like I told you, I killed him myself! Tore out his eyes and his still-beating heart! Because of that, I can't go home!" he spat.

Kuroka relaxed at that, a profound feeling of comeuppance making her fight down a smirk, she doubted her pupil would enjoy seeing that expression on her face at the moment, thinking that rather than pride at punishing the jerk, she was amused at her student's plight. "Naruto...has it ever crossed your mind that maybe that Tengu-teme wasn't as beloved, idolized, and revered as you THINK he was?"

"Right..." Naruto drawled sardonically, his tone delicately inflected to suggest his disbelief. "He was so secretly loathed that if I went back home, I'd be put to death for doing my job because killing him was the only way to stop him from getting to that twisted, body-snatching megalomaniac! Heck, I kill him and after that I get transported to Hell and turn into a devil. Tell me, does that seem like a coincidence?"

Fair point, looking too much into it, but still... "You're looking at this in a very religious context when you put it that way, you know that, right?" Kuroka said, causing Naruto to make a face of disgust at that.

"Do I look like the type to just sit on my ass and mindlessly mutter into the air for help that will never come until the answer to all life's problems just falls out of a cloud and into my lap, sensei?" the stray devil spat.

"True, I'll give you that." the SS-class criminal confessed.

"Why are you so interested in helping me anyways?" Naruto asked. That question had bothered him for days now.

"Simple, really. I know what it feels like to have someone else ruin your life." Kuroka gained a distant look in her eyes, clearly lost in happier times, "Back before I was changed into a devil, life was good. I lived with my mother, father, and younger sister, Shirone-chan. After our parent's deaths, Shirone-chan and I went around trying to find another way of living, eventually we ran into a devil and were accepted into their peerage, I myself was worth two b pieces, and being a Nekomata, I was, and still am, pretty powerful. In fact, I grew stronger than my peerage's King."

"The point of this and how it ties into my question being...?" Naruto asked.

"Getting to that. Well, as you can image, my old boss didn't like that much. People fear those stronger than them. So in his paranoia, the bastard came up with a scheme to leech my imoto's life force from her to add her power onto his and by doing so, at least in his mind, gain the ability to use senjutsu and youjustsu himself, thus making him stronger than me."

Naruto chuckled, "And let me guess...he was stupid enough?"

His teacher nodded. "He was stupid enough. Told me right to my face what he planned to do and thought I'd just go along with helping him, that he was untouchable because of the laws against stray devils and he thought I'd care about that more than the last family I had left."

"...I can see where this is going. Let me guess: you literally taught him he was dead wrong, emphasis on the 'dead' part, am I right." It wasn't a question.

Kuroka hissed and her ears pressed back against her head the way normal cats did when they were ad, like they wanted to fight. "Bingo...my sister means EVERYTHING to me, I built the focus of my existence on my feelings for her. So when I heard that...I _corrected_ my old boss on my priorities. After I committed regicide against that bastard, the survivors of my former peerage twisted the story around so that I was seen as a power-drunk murderess. I was forced to run. I didn't have any choice."

"No other _right_ choice...but I can't say you made the **_wrong _**choice, either." Naruto said. "You had something you cared about put at risk, and the only way to protect it was to do something unforgivable and horrible. Still, it would have been worse if you hadn't crossed that line. Circumstances and situation have a way of forcing a person's hand, bring out that kind of 'what would you do', you made your choice and gave your answer. I respect that."

Kuroka smiled. "That's why I wanted to help you and took you as my student. You're having to deal with the same situation. Like you said, no other right choice, and you got into this mess because of someone else's arrogance and stupidity."

Naruto pushed himself to his feet, nodding grimly. He understood what she was saying. "Fine."

Kuroka sighed, she hated having to bring that up. Heck knew if he ever found out how badly he'd take it if he actually thought that she made that up to get him to trust her. He'd bared his past to her and if he was ever lead to think that she was just playing off his empathy for those who had to endure unjustified persecution.

Trust was a notoriously fragile thing, especially for something that was slow and hard to build.

"Sensei...I'm wondering since I'm new to this whole Devil thing, what do you mean by Stray?" Naruto asked.

Kuroka sighed, expecting the question. "Stray Devils are Devils who diverted away from their masters, either by simply escaping them, or by killing them."

"...Like us, you mean." Naruto said, stating the unsaid part of the explanation.

The nekomata nodded. "Yeah. Like us, but you at least have the option open to have you status as a stray revoked."

Naruto made a face, "Rias." he said with distaste.

Kuroka held up her hands placatingly, "Look, hear me out: The problem with Strays is that without their masters to keep their powers in check, they become a threat if their powers go beyond their control ability to control. I at least know my limits. But you...have you ever tapped into a full one hundred-percent of your power? Before you were changed, I mean. And you're more than just human now. There's no way the Devils will let someone with your reserves just run wild."

Naruto scowled. "So my only choice is to go back to that Blood-Haired Bitch that changed me into the very type of creature I can't stand...or I get hunted down like an animal and killed for being too strong? Not much of a choice."

Kuroka nodded. "Preaching to the choir, kiddo. Don't need to tell me the life of a Stray Devil sucks." she sighed.

"Pity there's no way to make me harder to find by lowering my power then..." Naruto griped, looking at his hands as he clenched them into fists.

"No way to lo...ho!" Kuroka said, then went wide-eyed, the she grinned and grabbed Naruto by the wrist. "Come on, Fishcakes! Sensei's got an idea!" she cheered.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Naruto shouted as the cat formed a transportation circle and they vanished.

"Haven't graduated yet, so I can!" Kuroka said cheerfully.

* * *

"Hey, leader!" Kuroka said as the two reappeared.

Naruto blinked and stumbled a bit, feeling disoriented for a moment. He shook his head. He'd have to get used to that magic-that materializing/teleporting thing

Looking around, he took in that him and his sensei weren't alone. Four other people stood around them.

One was a young man with dark silver hair and ice blue eyes that are often shown as to be rimmed with a light ultramarine. He was wearing a dark green V-neck shirt with a high-collared black leather jacket over it. Along with burgundy jeans with a silver chain drooping down over them and black leather chaps with three bands encircling his right calf, and black shoes with black buckles.

Another was a bespectacled young man with blonde hair and dressed in a business suit, next to him was a cute girl with a slim body, shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes; appearing to be around the same age as a middle-schooler. Her attire consisted of a sorceress-like dress with a huge blue hat with a black bow and yellow stars and matching cape with pink flowers and a white interior.

And finally there was a young man with short black hair and was dressed in ancient Chinese armor, who was leaning against a staff, looking bored.

"Kuroka!" the witch-dressed girl shouted happily, drawing the rest of the group's attention on the newcomers.

"Hey everyone!" the cat greeted.

"Oh...before I forget, Everybody, this is Uzumaki Naruto, my new apprentice." At Kuroka's words, Naruto found everyone looking at him with interest.

"Naruto...this is Vali Lucifer, our group's leader, those two are Arthur Pendragon and Le Fay Pendragon, siblings who are the descendants of King Arthur and Morgan le Fay. And finally, that's Bikou, the descendant of the first Monkey King, Sun Wukong." Kuroka said, pointing each person out as they were introduced. Naruto looked at each of them, but his eyes widened at the hazy image he saw coming from the silver-haired guy's back. What looked like white metal-resembling extensions came from his shoulders that had four, glowing blue energy "feathers" that looked like sheets of colored glass coming off his back.

"Nice wings, pretty boy. What's with the high-tech theme, though?" Naruto said.

Vali's eyes widened and he rolled his shoulders, as if the wings were really there, "...You can see it, Even when I'm not using my Longinus?" Vali said, surprised.

Naruto shrugged, "Sort of a flickering, smokey afterimage of them, like a mirage, but yeah, I can see your wings. Eyes give me the ability to observe and differentiate the flow of energy coming off others, predict and mimic movements and techniques, and see through illusions, so I can see the wings because they have so much power."

Vali gawked, then grinned. "Impressive. Well...since you know they're there, no point in keeping them secret from you. These wings of mine are know as Divine Dividing. as you can guess from the name, it has the ability to divide the power of its opponents by half after coming into physical contact with them every ten seconds. The halved powers are then added to my own powers. If the added power exceeds the amount that the wielder can safely contain, the excess energy is then expelled out through the wings which allows the user to always be at their highest potential."

"So you can lower the power I've got, make me harder to find?" he said, _'So that was Kuroka's idea...' _he thought.

"Say Wha...?" Vali said, actually looking surprised.

"Kid's got too much power to keep himself hidden, Boss," Kuroka explained, shrugging.

"How strong is he?" Bikou asked.

Kuroka smirked. "You're a Senjutsu-user yourself, take a look, banana-butt."

Bikou growled at the name, then focused on Naruto. A Second later, Bikou fell to his knees and having a seizure. Arthur rushed forward and pulled out a long sword that glowed with a golden aura and skewered but rather than harming him, the blade sunk into him as if he were wet clay and the glowing aura spread to cover Bikou's whole body.

"Relax." he said like an order and the monkey in human form seemed to take it as such, opening his eyes.

"H...H-hu-hu...holy shit...! That's impossible! _No one_ has chakra levels that high...!" he used his staff like a cane and pushed himself up, locking eyes with Naruto. "...What...ARE you?! A nephilim? A living Longinus?!" then he seemed to notice the sword stuck in his chest and gave Arthur a flat glare of annoyance, "Dude, the Excalibur Ruler, seriously?"

"My apologies." the bifocal-wearing young man said curtly, removing the blade, which left no injury.

"He's a Reincarnate...human originally," Kuroka said, ignoring the dirty look her student sent her way at her words, "but to be fair, he's from a different dimension, one that's full of chakra-users."

"Ah...alternate realities...infinite variations of worlds, some are very similar,while others are vastly different. Entire parallel universes existing separate from one another and all that other brain-frying scientific mumbo-jumbo jazz." The monkey king said, using his staff like a cane to push himself up and nodding as he spoke, then eyed Naruto critically. "Reincarnated devil, huh? Who made him one?"

"Rias Gremory." Naruto said sourly, shrugging as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

As soon as he said that, everything seemed to freeze and everyone looked at him in sheer shock. Then everything unfroze at once.

"SAY WHAT...?!" Bikou shouted.

"No way...that practically spits in the face of the unwritten cardinal rules of the Underworld! The Gremory family don't produce Stray Devils!" Le Fay cried.

"Take them in, perhaps, but not produce them..." Arthur said, his eyes narrowing.

Naruto rolled his transplanted eyes. So he didn't like Rias Gremory, big deal. Why did people have to always make such a commotion over things that affected someone else but not them? So annoying!

Vali, unlike the rest of his team, however, didn't seem to be reacting as badly as the others, but instead gave the newcomer a more appraising gaze. "Stray of the Gremorys...Interesting..." he said, then walked up to the younger devil and held out a hand.

Naruto looked at the offered limb. Realizing that Vali was offering him a chance with his group.

As much as he'd always hated it, Naruto had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He'd survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester, because he'd learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you and pretended you weren't scared, you usually didn't get beat up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs or find you so annoying that you weren't worth the effort of beating on. Plus, humor was a good way to hide the pain... made it so he didn't get bogged down thinking about the bad stuff. He smile and joked even when he didn't feel like it. Especially when he didn't feel like it.

If that didn't work...well...back-alley brawling and shanty town pit-fighting tactics may not be pretty, but they got the job done. He never could get the street fighter out of his system, even after getting admitted to the academy and receiving actual fighting lessons, but hey...if it works, why fix what isn't broken? He'd even incorporated his self-taught street fighting into his formal hand-to-hand combat lessons from the ninja academy.

Whether out of kindness or not, these people found he had things about him that made him useful to them and wanted him among their ranks, that was more than he could say for most people who knew him. Most only knew the joker, the fool...and he wasn't blind, he knew that Sakura saw him merely as a means to an end because of her own inability to be willing to learn how to live without being able to slobber over Sasuke's ass every waking moment of her life.

Useful...but that was all...still, that was enough.

He took Vali's hand and shook it firmly.

"Well, Naruto...Welcome to the Vali Team." Vali said, smirking.


End file.
